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TEE RIDE HOME 



THE RIDE HOME 

Poems 



WITH 

The Marriage of Guineth 

A PLAT m ONE ACT 
BY 

FLORENCE WILKINSON EVANS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(Cte ll^iberj^ibe ^ve0 Camhribge 

1913 






COPYRIGHT, I913, BY FLORENCE WILKINSON EVANS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published Novetnber zqig 



0)CI,A357858 



TO 

ONES WHO HAVE LED ME 

BY NEW PATHS AND OLD INTO PLACES OF BEAUTY 

WITHOUT WHICH THIS BOOK WOULD 

NEVER HAVE BEEN 

TO 

MOTHER, FATHER, WILFRID, CHRISTOPHER 

AND THE DEAR MEMORY OF 

MAUD 

THESE POEMS ARE GRATEFULLY 

DEDICATED 



CONTENTS 

THE CITY 

The Angel of the Cornice 3 

Children of the Belated Lands .... 5 

Broadway remembers her Childhood ... 8 

Brooklyn Bridge 10 

After the Theater . .12 

The Chapel of the Virgin 14 

The Music-Hall 15 

A Box AT THE Opera 17 

High-Finance . . 1^ 

At the Salon 21 

The Sculptor 23 

New York 25 

The Subway 27 

The Curb-Brokers 29 

The Singlng Knight 30 

Fifth Avenue 32 

The Years that the Locust hath eaten . . 34 

Will Goodspeed 36 

Our Lady of Idleness 38 

The Milliner's Apprentice 42 

Under the Williamsburg Bridge .... 44 

[vii] 



CONTENTS 



The Little Fruit-Shop 46 

The Flower Factory 47 

The Lodging-House 49 

The Motor-Man 50 

The Soubrette 52 

The Coal-Mine 55 

Niagara 59 

A Salutation to Russia 64 

The Outcast 70 

Travesties 73 

Hands 76 

People 78 

THE COUNTRY 

Up a Brook 85 

Self 88 

Secrets 91 

The Nightingale 93 

The Fugitive Moment 95 

The Little House by the Sea 97 

Fireflies 99 

Midsummer Trees 100 

Ephemera 101 

The Deserted Hotel 103 

For the Launching of a Little Boat . . . 105 

Ecstasies 107 

Kingdoms and Principalities 108 



[ viii ] 



CONTENTS 



Moonlight 110 

April at Giverny 112 

Spring by the Guadalhorce 113 

Twilight-Watchers 115 

The Canada Road 117 

The End of the Camp 119 

Radiances 121 

After-Glow 123 

The Impressionist 124 



ON THE HIGHROAD 

Spain 127 

Camilla returning from Abroad .... 129 

The Goatherd-Poet 131 

To a Nymph at Aranjuez 133 

The Illuminated Canticle 135 

An Andalusian Village 138 

The Mosque at Cordoba 140 

Granada 141 

Toledo 143 

Ballad-making in Seville 146 

On a Tower in Cadiz 149 

A Nameless City 151 

The Stranger in the House 152 

MooNRisE AT Malaga 154 

The Music at Saint Sulpice 155 

The Cathedral at Chartres 156 



[ix] 



CONTENTS 



Pedro at the Spring 158 

Seven Green Pools at Cintra 160 

A Moorish Fountain 163 

Batalha 165 

The Castle of the Order of Christ . . . 167 

The Garden of Tears 169 

A Hillside of White Heather ..... 173 
The Statues in the Museum ..... 175 

The Unknown Architect 177 

Waterfalls 179 

Mont Blanc 182 

On the Roof of the Milan Cathedral . . . 183 
The Baker's Boy ...,..,,. 184 
A Memorial Tablet . . . ... . . . 186 

A Roman Garden 189 

The Ride Home 192 

THE IVORY GATE 

The Shadow of the Helmet ...*.. 197 

Youth 200 

The Son of his Father 202 

Yearning 204 

Infinity 206 

Vespers . ► 208 

The Path we never took 209 

India . 211 

Nay, Do not hoard your Dream . . . .213 



[xl 



CONTENTS 



The Swimmer 215 

Inspiration 217 

The Star 219 

A Dream in Sickness 220 

The Innocent 223 

The Trembling Flower 226 

The Fool spake 227 

The Visitor 230 

The Lighted Lamp 233 

Kinship 235 

The Things that endure 237 

To Time the Mediator 238 

Motherhood 240 



OTHER WORLDS 

Christmas Eve 245 

A Prince in Vetulonia 248 

The Dead travel Fast 250 

Flaminia, Flaminia 253 

Fra Bernardo's Vision 257 

Sanctuary 259 

The Guillotine 264 

Temptation 269 

When she came to Glory 275 

Buying and Selling 277 

White Azenor 280 

I had a Dream 283 



[xi] 



CONTENTS 



The Green Glade 284 

Angus the Outlaw 286 

Unfinished Lives 288 

The Birthplace of Morning 291 

The Death Wound 293 

The Two Travelers 297 

The Soul and the Evil Deed _.__._..„._. 301 

THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 303 

Index 385 



TEE CITY 



THE CITY 



THE ANGEL OF THE CORNICE 

(skyscrapers) 

JLjISTEN to me, ye creeping ants of men, 
Because of human hearts I snatched and slew. 
Because of blood poured out, because of blood, 
I am drawn close to you. 



Listen, across the quivering sea of roofs 
Thousands of miles — that cry along the wires! 
Aerial signals, soundless waves of air 
Heavy with import, moan of steel-spun spires! 



I brood above the costliness of the task 
Through which these human creatures fall consumed. 
Men, bow the head before their dizzying grave 
Whose valor and toil to such a death are doomed. 



This is the harvest you have sowed; 

Your blood is mixed with mine, with mine; 

[31 



TEE ANGEL OF TEE CORNICE 



And I, who break you on my fiery wheel, 
Not Moloch am I, but divine, divine. 



The pitiless Angel of the Mercenary? 
Nay, for I am too great. 
Lifting the vast hopes of the modern world 
As on the knees of fate. 



I am Winged Victory at the prow. 
Oh ye who serve the God of force. 
Pilgrims that ride the deep with me. 
Ye, too, shall learn the love that is remorse. 



14] 



THE CITY 



CHILDREN OF THE BELATED LANDS 

They Cry from the Untaught Wilderness 

(jtREAT lady my country, look on us! 
Dark-eyed Georgia lost on the hills. 
And the lads of tawny Tennessee, — 
Cotton-white faces of babes at the loom. 
And the gray breaker-boys bent, knee to knee. 
Kind lady my country, look on us! 
As once you were, so now are we, 
Hewing our way in the wilderness. 



Yellow beast-eyes in wondering rings 

Glare and watch us, the slant wood-things. 

Are they the only ones who care. 

Great lady my country? Yonder there 

Beyond the pines and the craggy knoll 

Goes the Song of the High-Road. It draws the soul. 

You have won outward to the light; 

We still are creatures of the night. 



[SJ 



CHILDREN OF THE BELATED LANDS 



Dear lady my country, it is far, far off, 

That Song of the great High-Road, 

And far are the feet of them that pass 

With guerdon of bread for us. 

We stretch our hands to take and eat. 

But we cannot reach at all ; 

It is trampled under the horses' feet. 

While we count the loaves as they fall. 



They Cry from the Mines and the Mills 

Great lady my country, look on us ! 

We have never been taught how the compass 

points. 
Nor the way of the wind and the sun. 
We are lashed, hand and foot, to a crooked tree, 
And our mouths are gagged with factory dust; 
And when we are grown we are anciently shaped, 
And our blood is rust. 



We are base and sodden with scowling brows. 
And we know the weapon of fear. 
We slink half -clad or in dirt we house. 
And our laugh is ugly to hear. 
Dear lady my country, we want to be strong, 
And to walk like you. 

[6] 



CHILDREN OF TEE BELATED LANDS 



We want to be beautiful and tall. 

Will you help us, you, 

Our remote and lovely mother? 



They Cry Together 

Great lady our country, look on us ! 
Like blind things creeping under the keel 

Are we. 
Or a submerged face 
While the ship sails on! 
Like dumb things tied to the chariot's wheel 

In the dust of the race. 
Dragged, aye, dead, ere the goal be won. 

Are we: 



Dark-eyed Georgia lost on the hills. 
And the lads of tawny Tennessee, — 
Cotton-white faces of babes at the loom, 
And the gray breaker-boys bent, knee to knee. 
As once you were, so now are we. 
Pioneers of an untamed land. 
You have won outward to the light. 
We still are creatures of the night. 
Great lady our country, give your hand 
In token we, too, may understand. 

171 



TEE CITY 



BROADWAY REMEMBERS HER CHILDHOOD 

MSTERS, little country roads I knew and loved. 

Long and long ago and far away. 
Where the rosy lumps of children roll their hoops and play 
After school. 

Till the west ripples pink and the fields breathe cool 
And their mothers in the dooryards call them home, 
(Emeline! Ora! May!) 

Sisters, little country roads I knew and loved, — 
In childhood (that's the time to roam) 
The Autumn Road that winds up over the hill 
To the hazy sun; 

The Tangly Road where the brown-lace carrots flute 
Their cup-shaped hands; 
The Forsaken Road where the barberries frill 
The lonely fences 
With shrivels of beady red; 
The Orchard Lane by the clear-faced brook to the cider 

miU 
Where the joking old men toddle 
With their gleanings in a sack, 

18] 



BROADWAY REMEMBERS HER CHILDHOOD 



(The familiar hopeful look 

Of the gnurly faded back!) 

The Green Road, ferny-smelling, — 

It drifts through the silent wood 

Like a meditating girl; — 

All ye friendly Paths and Country Places, 

Alive and different like human folk, 

(One of you had a bird-blue cloak 

Of cunning wings and leaves. 

And oh, the whispering bonnet woven 

Of teasel-cones and glistery sheaves !) 

Sisters, little country roads I knew and loved, 

Knew your names so long ago and far away, 

I who am in exile and a worldling, changed, ah, 

changed ; 
I remember and I envy each of you ! 



[9] 



TEE CITY 



BROOKLYN BRIDGE 



1 HE great bridge is as beautiful as death. 

Death, spanning dreamless chasms; 
As subtle and as simple as a child. 
To stand upon it dazzles, drains the dizzy breath. 



Like a wild running horse, curved out, four feet in air, 

A sculptor's Icarus vision; 
A motionless mirage with cities on its wings; 
An armored angel poised 'twixt steel -bright grappling 
things. 



By night across the beaded blackness of the ferry 
I trace the comets of the nebulous cars 

Plunge through the unsupported void: 
Glittering, they creep and vanish, a slow red line of 
stars. 



[10] 



BROOKLYN BRIDGE 



By day, a shifting checkerboard of noiseless people. 

Each carrying a destiny in his hand; 
Like burdened ants intent on tribal goals, 
Gregarious atoms with indiscoverable and separate souls. 



Oh, people of the bridge, quick, solemn midges, 
As dark as migrant plover flying in a wedge. 

Spanning the dreamless chasm your souls go, bidden 
To leap at last the gods' translunary edge. 



Ill] 



TEE CITY 



AFTER THE THEATER 



OCENT of roses, lights and wine. 
Rosy lights and flashing mirrors. 
Brilliant nodding hothouse women 
Whose bare shoulders like rare flowers 
Ringed with petals, lift and shine. 



Half-draped bosoms, penciled eyes, 
Hot unhappy lusts and secrets 
Burning low across the cognac: 
Words that rankle, tinkle, tankle, 
While white hands in dalliance-wise 
Play and flutter for disguise. 



Two by two they linger late. 
He a boy of Doric beauty. 
Fresh as one of Bion's shepherds; 
She a woman with the bitter 



[12] 



AFTER THE THEATER 



Scarlet lips that soon or late 

Are bequeathed to them who hate. 

Derelicts or whims of fate. 



Swift as witch-runes from a book, 
Sharply dissonate words are shook 
Under her blue drift of plumage, 
And her eyes like narrow lightnings 
Stab but do not scar his calmness. 
What wild war is in her look! 



Some are lovers, beyond a doubt. 
Or the weary or desirous: 
Two by two they play their dramas; 
Behind the uncertain wavering curtain 
Of their masks, their thoughts peer out. 



Like a moon-gemmed constellation 

Girdled with publicity. 

Each group is a flaring unit, 

To all others a mystery 

In the crowd's loud isolation. 



[13] 



THE CITY 



THE CHAPEL OF THE VHIGIN 



1 HE streaming glitter of the Avenue, 
The jeweled women holding parasols. 
The lathered horses fretting at delay. 
The customary afternoon blockade. 
The babel and the babble, the brilliant show — 
And then the dusky quiet of the nave. 
The pillared space, an organ strain that throbs 
Mysteriously somewhere, a rainbow shaft 
Shed from a saint's wounds, shimmering through 

the air. 
A workman with hard hands who bows his head. 
And there before the shrine of Virgin Mary 
A lonely servant girl who kneels and sobs. 



[141 



TEE CITY 



THE MUSIC-HALL 



1 HE steady electric light flares white 

While they 
Sit in a still line, doomed and gray. 



The pitiless music grinds. With tuneless minds 

They wait, 
Smilelessly watch, and calculate. 



Their painted fading youth struggles with truth — 

And sin. 
Their poisoned eyes show the hurt soul within. 



The mirrored glitter mocks their trivial frocks; 

They scan 
With burned-out anxious eyes each entering man; 



[16] 



THE MUSIC-HALL 



They clink the mirthless glass while the hours pass. 

But do they think 
Of the final Debt, the cost of their last Drink? 



Far on some blossomy lane the moonbeams rain 

All the sweet night; 
Perhaps one haggard girl treasures a Vision White. 



1161 



TEE CITY 



A BOX AT THE OPERA 



A TWINKLING feminine creature, twilight-eyed. 
The ghnting curve of jewels to zone her hair, 
A mist-gray gown, a tremulous air; 



A dissolute boy, with braggadocio calm. 

An eyeglass, crafty hands, the smile that sneers. 

Who, as the music sobbed, stared at the tiers. 



The play was Siegfried. When the bird-song broke 
Like sunlight rippling through the leafy place. 
The braggadocio boy laughed low into her face. 



The twilight creature started like one hurt, 

And, her young twinkling face grown old and gray, 

She shut her little hands and leaned away. 



[17] 



A BOX AT THE OPERA 



The music ran and leaped like nimble fire, 
Brynhilde's mystic boundaries burned, wind-blown; 
I only saw that soft face turned to stone. 



[18] 



THE CITY 



HIGH-FINANCE 



vJN the dull benches seated side by side 
They gaze indifferently. How easy to deride! 
You saw them yesterday, the same sad human ruck. 
Yet of the sodden crew one salient face I pluck 



That holds the passer's eye : — A self-respecting coat 
In proud denial of his cravatless throat. 
Head like a statesman's with a mane of snow; 
Stern brows, a glance that challenges below. 



Scornful and gaunt, he greets his neighbors not. 
The great town beats unseen, a nebulous blot, 
The while he hugs his past, his destiny unkind. 
And the old storms echo in his haunted mind. 



He mutters and he nods, remarshaling that last strife, 
CThe incalculable turn that spoiled his life!) 

[19] 



HIGH-FINANCE 



His ridged hands clutch a tattered document. 
Soiled record of his dreams and schemes magnificent. 



He charts his rubber forests by streams of Paraguay 
Where jeweled parrots rift the emerald spray, 
Or from his mines and quarries in rose-peaked Ecuador 
His half-breeds hurl the heaps of glittering ore. 



On the park bench another vagrant sits; 
Note the loose chin, the weak wool-gathering wits, 
Inane thumbs twitching like automata revolved. 
And pink eyes in a vinous blur dissolved ! 



O ye that idly look, look once again. 
These are two derelicts, both being outcast men. 
One is but scummy drift, the mockery of a Thing; 
The other, search his eye! A shipwrecked King. 



[20] 



THE CITY 



AT THE SALON 



oRAVE as the firstborn flame upsprings the 
statue, 

A worshiper of the Sun : 
With arms and hps and vital hair he praises 

The Dawn begun. 



Buoyancy, adoration of beginnings. 

He soars tiptoe. 
Nor heeds he that his pHnth was wreathed with 
cj'press 

An hour ago, 



Memorial of the maker of the statue 

Who in his ultimate pain 
Set free the spirit in the block of marble, 

— Child of his brain. 



[21] 



AT THE SALON 



The men and women pacing through the Salon 
By that grave challenge are stopped, 

Pondering on him from whose arrested fingers 
The tool has dropped. 



For him blacK weeds are draped and just one moment 

Chatter is mute. 
While, like a skylark, sings his last glad sculpture 

Its flame-salute. 



[22] 



TEE CITY 



THE SCULPTOR 

(L. P.) 

r^ TILL of magnificent dreams you left us, Louis, 
Dreams that must now go starved : 

Better than most you made high vision plastic. 
The things you thought you carved. 



Extravagant, careless, wild, they called you, Louis. 

Somehow, wherever boomed 
Your big and mellow voice, came youth, light-singing. 

And fine ideals bloomed. 



Touched with the gravity of the inner mystic. 

Some Source withdrawn you found; 
You shaped your wistful message, — Burden-Bearers, 

The solemn large Earth-Bound. 



[23] 



THE SCULPTOR 



No one who met you can forget you, Louis, 

Your genius to be true. 
Whether in bronze or marble, nobly moulded. 

Or just in being you. 



[24] 



THE CITY 



NEW YORK 



INTO the violet vastness of shoreless and moaning 

twilight 
The infinite hulk of the ship of my city pushes her 

course, 
Paying out with the rush of her spindle a log unre- 

tuming, 
Cryings of births and hushes of deaths recording the 

knots of her voyage. 



On her decks by the chart-house they pace, the gallant 
leisurely passengers. 

Some sob deep down in her hold, the huddled fright- 
ened stowaways, 

But the infinite ship of my city steadily surges 
onward; 

Saluting her neighbors (audacious or timid) the lights 
of her starboard and larboard. 



125] 



NEW YORK 



Ship of my city, ship of my city, burning clear at the 

head of thy foremast. 
Who is thy captain, what is thy message, where is the port 

that thou makest? 
Into the violet vastness of shoreless and moaning twilight 
The infinite hulk of the ship of my city pushes her course 

unretuining. 



126] 



TEE CITY 



THE SUBWAY 

JDELOW the roaring city streets the Subway sweeps 

invisibly. 
Behw the bright apparent faces rush currents hid from you 

and me : 
Below our calm and outward manners strange passions seethe 

tumultuously. 



Some hurrying woman in your path — turns in, she is 

engulfed from sight; 
Those casual men upon the pavement, even as you watch, 

they slip from sight. 
Her purpose unknown and destination, a girl once plunged in 

London's night. 



Trains race each other underground, like animals in frantic 

greed. 
Packed full of gray and silent people each serving his own 

separate need. 

[27] 



TEE SUBWAY 



Beside each other, blind and deaf, our souls go like a gaunt 

wolf -breed ; 
Oblivious each of other one, in world-long lust of common 

goals. 
Aye, deaf and blind to our own kind, race by our savage 

separate souls. 



[28] 



THE CITY 



THE CURB-BROKERS 

11 AIL, ye frenzied creatures, antic, mask-like figures. 
Shouting gibberish symbols, wheat and corn and cotton. 
Lo, the whole world is a maniac vision. 
Worm-eaten by black hopes and wriggling poisonous 
alarms; 
Neither flesh nor blood nor God nor devil. 
One great brazen throat and dollar-signs for arms. 
Hail, ye frenzied creatures, 
'T is a blue autumn morn! 
And did ye ever walk among the rustling rows of corn? 



[29 1 



TEE CITY 



THE SINGING KNIGHT 

(b. w. g.) 

OTOP! did you know our knight, our singing knight, was 

gone. 
He with a man's sad eyes and a child's joy in the dawn? 



Nay, it can never be. I saw him but yesterday. 

He with a man's brave heart and a boy's jest for the way. 



Nay, it can never be that our singing knight is still. 
I saw him but now, a figure of light, as he charged and 
mounted the hill. 



He smote the oppressor; he lifted the fallen; he led the 

belated throng. 
For his sword was bright and his shield was clean, and he 

sang as he rode along. 



[30] 



THE SINGING KNIGHT 



Aye, there are tears for this. He was stricken on the road 
Where he gave himself and spent himself. How white his 
armor glowed! 



Many who housed them with sobs and many who hoarded a 

crust 
Are richer and comforted through him who sleeps in the 

dust. 



Stop? Nay, I cannot stop. I go on the errands of him 
As he taught us how, with hope in my heart, God knows, 
though my eyes are dim. 



I can see his dark face shine in the gold of that ancient 

wood; 
Listen, I hear his voice mid the prayers of the multitude. 



[81] 



THE CITY 



FIFTH AVENUE 

Exquisite women of our rich, 

Servants ye are, not free; 
Seekers of joy and beauty, yet 
Bound by mad fantasy. 



Gorgeous, along the street and avenue 
You float and flit and stop. 

And by your shining horses at the curb 
We recognize the fashionable shop. 



But oh, your horses, reined up at the door, 

Breathless, with livid tongue! 
They, too, like you, could taste the joy of life, 

Are beautiful and young. 



Instead, with neck taut in a frightful curve. 

Stretched slender legs to stand the torturing strain, 

[32] 



FIFTH AVENUE 



They gasp and tremble, red foam at the mouth. 
Eyes glazed with pain. 



Exquisite, cruel creatures, what are ye. 

Women, or soulless elves? 
Look in the suffering eyes of your poor horses. 

Free them and thus — yourselves! 



331 



THE CITY 



THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN 

You wore your life with such high grace 

Those days I knew you; 
Such eyes, such dreams ! What afterward. 

Assailed you, slew you? 



Your voice rang with an inner song 

The clear soul telling; 
You poured yourself and sparkled forth, 

A fount upwelling. 



Since, what has choked your utterance. 

What came to kill you? 
It used to be — a cloud, a flower. 

Could lift and thrill you. 



Did some one touch a secret spring 
Once, deep within you? 

[34 1 



THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN 



Or had you power, without — alas 
Faith to continue? 



Why do you turn your eyes away? 

What kindness do you lack? 
The heights you loved — wait for you, yours! 

Oh, man, come back! 



Praise God, our ways met when you walked 

A spiritual prince. 
For that great memory I forgive. 

Gladly, all since! 



[35] 



TEE CITY 



WILL GOODSPEED 



I MET Will Goodspeed on the street; 
He springs as if to kiss one's feet, 
A forthright child of the East, in soul, 
So eloquent, overflowing, fleet. 
His salutation when we meet. 



Will Goodspeed is American 
And looks like any other man. 
Not over-fine nor over-neat; 
But his face shines as if he ran 
Brain full of some high splendid plan. 



The place was Broadway at its flood. 
Mid-road, a cab splashed trails of mud, — 
'Girl, listen," cried he, quite abruptly; 
With sculptor's hands he sketched in air 
The great Group that had stirred his blood, 



[sei 



WILL GOODSPEED 



And drunk with the creative mood, 
He nigh embraced me as I stood. 



The street-car I was waiting for 

Clanged, hissed, and vanished with a roar: 

"Earthly temptation clinging thus. 
Shaped like a creature to adore, — 
I leave it somewhat in the rough, 
Suggesting sexless mystery more, — 
Mind you — " "No, please don't illustrate, 
Will Goodspeed, or gesticulate!" 
Like a shot bird quenched was his flight: 

"Pardon," he said, "of course you're right.'* 



"Forgive me, please," Will Goodspeed said, 
"I quite forgot our whereabouts." 
We heard a newsboy's maniac shouts. 
Will crept away, grown small and gray, 
A commonplace upon Broadway, 
Nor did it fill me with content 
To think that glistening dream was rent 
To save myself embarrassment. 



[37 



TEE CITY 



OUR LADY OF IDLENESS 

1 HEY in the darkness gather and ask 
Her name, the mistress of their endless task. 

THE TOILERS 

Tinsel-makers in factory gloom. 

Miners in ethylene pits. 

Divers and druggists mixing poisonous bloom. 



Huge hunters, men of brawn. 

Half-naked creatures of the tropics. 

Furred trappers stealing forth at Labrador dawn. 



Catchers of beetles, sheep-men in bleak sheds, 
Pearl-fishers perched on Indian coasts. 
Children in stifling towers pulling threads. 



[38] 



OUR LADY OF IDLENESS 



Dark bunchy women pricking intricate laces, 
Myopic jewelers' apprentices, 
Arabs who chase the long-legged birds in sandy 
places; 



They are her invisible slaves. 

The genii of her costly wishes. 

Climbing, descending, running under waves. 



They strip earth's dimmest cell. 
They burn and drown and stifle 
To build her inconceivable and fragile shell. 



THE ARTIST-AETISANS 

They have painted a miracle-shawl 
Of cobwebs and whispering shadows 
And trellised leaves that ripple on a wall. 



They have broidered a tissue of cost. 

Spun foam of the sea 

And liHed imagery of the vanishing frost. 



[391 



OUR LADY OF IDLENESS 



Her floating skirts have run 

Like iridescent marshes 

Or Hke the tossed hair of a stormy sun. 



Her silver cloak has shone 
Blue as a mummy's beads. 
Green as the ice-glints of an Arctic zone. 



She is weary and has lain 

At last her body down. 

"What, with her clothing's beauty they have slain! 



THE TOILERS 

Lo, she is thinner than fire 

On a burned mill-town's edge 

And smaller than a young child's dead desire. 



Yea, emptier than the wage 

Of a spent harlot crying for her beauty. 

And grayer than the mumbling lips of age. 



[40 



OUR LADY OF IDLENESS 



A LOST GIRL 

White as a drowned one's feet 

Twined with the wet sea-bracken, 

And naked as a Sin driven from God's littlest street. 



THE ANGEL WITH THE SWORD 

Come, brothers, let us Hft 

Her pitiful body on high. 

Her tight-shut hands that take to heaven no gift 

But dust of costly things. 

We seven archangels will 

Bear her in silence on our flame-tipped wings. 



i«i 



THE CITY 



THE MILLINER'S APPRENTICE 

A MILLINER'S Lithuanian errand-girl 

Limped up the Avenue; 
The florist's window spread its fairy garden 

Before her view. 
Orchids ahve, leaves fringed like scarlet feathers. 

And bushes burning blue. 



She stood before the window a long while. 
The shop's dull ravelings on her somber cloak, 
Like a dazed heavy beetle half-benumbed 

In a gay troop of gauzy-winged folk. 
The elfin vivid flowers, like kin to her. 

Some rich prenatal memory awoke. 



Two beautiful great ladies, wreathed in wealth. 
Slipped shimmering softly through the florist's 
door; 



[42] 



TEE MILLINER'S APPRENTICE 



Their bright impersonal gaze glanced over her 
As if she were a pattern on the floor. 

Squat, open-mouthed, bewitched, I saw her stand, 
Her timid soul adrift on what strange shore! 



[43] 



TEE CITY 



UNDER THE WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE 

1 LOVE the massed humanity, each curious wrinkled 

face 
Of this crude helter-skelter market-place 
Beneath the huge abutments of the bridge. 



In the vast cluttered twilight of the piers 
The shiny heaps of horrible fishes lie, 
Each with an opaline leer in his flat eye; 
How adamant their courage who take and touch 
These limp long monsters of the slimy smutch! 



The ancient women have abundant wit 
And like stanch bales they plant their knees and sit. 
Frilled femininity — what do they know of it.^^ 
They shake their cotton stuffs, and woe, say I, 
To him who lingers, lingering not to buy. 



[44] 



VNDER THE WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE 



There stride two Russians in tall f urzy caps : 
They wore them on the frozen steppes, perhaps. 
Now by the East River in the grotesque dark, 
They wear them still, distinguished, passionate, stark, 



In this gross nether Circle full of red-rimmed eyes. 
Of fins and smutty wings and harpy cries, 
Where these two bushy bonneted black kings 
Rule the grim realm of startling under-things. 



Such epic arms, such Chaldee length of beard. 
And the wolf -glare of men in tyranny reared; 
Always the colloquial frenzy of these folk 
Seems murderous, such the madness of their croak 
In the fierce tongue their Slav forefathers spoke. 
Absorbed they with the solemn primitive greed 
That spurs us all, each soul unto his need. 



[45] 



TEE CITY 



THE LITTLE FRUIT-SHOP 



1 HE little Broadway fruit-shop bursts and glows 
Like a stained-glass window rioting through the gloom 
Of a grim fagade; a garden over-seas; 
A Syracusan idyl; a lilt that flows 
In chords of dusk-red color; emerald bloom 
Loved by the nightingale, voice of the voiceless trees; 
Ripe orchards mellow with innumerable bees. 



A dark Greek boy counts up with supple hands 

Lucent rotundities, the Bacchic grape 

In luscious pyramids, pears like a lute 

Most musically curved, nuts from sweet lands 

Demeter lost; oh, many a sculptured shape; — 

Had he his panther-skin, the thyrsus and the flute, 

Lo, a swart faun-god mid his votive fruit. 



[46] 



TEE CITY 



THE FLOWER FACTORY 



LiSABETTA, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, 
They are winding stems of roses, one by one, one by one, 
Little children who have never learned to play; 
Teresina softly crying that her fingers ache to-day; 
Tiny Fiametta nodding when the twilight slips in, gray. 
High above the clattering street, ambulance and fire-gong 

beat, 
They sit, curling crimson petals, one by one, one by one. 



Lisabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, 

They have never seen a rosebush nor a dewdrop in the sun. 

They will dream of the vendetta, Teresina, Fiametta, 

Of a Black Hand and a face behind a grating; 

They will dream of cotton petals, endless, crimson, suf- 
focating, 

Never of a wild-rose thicket nor the singing of a cricket. 

But the ambulance will bellow through the wanness of their 
dreams, 

And their tired lids will flutter with the street's hysteric 
screams. 

[47] 



THE FLOWER FACTORY 



Lisabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, 

They are winding stems of roses, one by one, one by one. 

Let tbem have a long long playtime, Lord of Toil, when 

toil is done, 
Fill their baby hands with roses, joyous roses of the smi ! 



[48] 



THE CITY 



THE LODGING-HOUSE 



1 HEY fling their boots down and they coarsely talk. 

Inquire not what they say. 
And then they lose themselves until the day. 



They have strange sorry faces as they sleep. 

Scarred with the wounds of sense. 
And not one face of clear-cut eloquence. 



There's yon a lad, with the spoiled wavy mouth 

Of beauty sold to ease; 
And one who lies gigantic and misshapen 
Like an ironic Hercules. 



The old men are unbeautiful and sodden. 

With Something eaten away 
From the inner secret plasm, how we return to clay! 

[491 



THE CITY 



THE MOTOR-MAN 

He scanned the track as marksmen eye the bead. 
He had a boy's face, somewhat loosely wrought, 
A fresh clean look; a brow untouched by thought; 
The joy of youth in speed. 



Then he leapt forward, a white flame of fright — 
His elemental hands grappled the brake in vain — 
That little life, crushed out too quick for pain, 
A cry that stabbed the night! 



(Oh, hideous wheels ! oh, sound beneath the wheels ! 
Does Death come so? How the blind vision reels!) 



Like a dazed dreamer in a torture-place 

He stood, the slow tears on his withered cheeks, 

Deaf to the circling women with their shrieks, 

[50] 



THE MOTOR-MAN 



(Fiercely her vengeance Little Sicily wreaks) 
Till the first stone struck his face. 



A common boy when the uptown trip began, 
Ignorant of those huge furies, Love and Hate: 
Now, a gray comrade to swift ancient Fate, 
Rory, the motor-man. 



[51] 



THE CITY 



THE SOUBRETTE 



A HAUNTER of the devious shades of Lady Fashion's 

bower, 
She plumes herself afresh each evanescent hour; 
Her startled headgear trembles, shooting up 
Above round massy hair bulged like a cup. 
Sometimes great owl-eyes glare upon her hat; 
Sometimes she 's furred and throatless like a smug Angora 

cat. 



Flower o' Town, Flower o' Town, 

Let's sail abroad both up and down. 

The splendid shops, the luring shops. 

The tide of feet that never stops. 

The huge square yellow motor-eyes. 

The bright stark stones, the newsboys' cries. 



[52] 



THE SOUBRETTE 



The first small breath of Lady Fashion by Flower o' Town 

is felt; 
She jingles with gilt objects at her multifarious belt; 
She drinks the smell of heat and gas and playhouse doors 

like wine, 
Trickling electric lights that pour their bibulous beaded 

sign, 
She knows them, feels them, loves them, as Indians love 

the trail, 
And her element upbuoys her, as those sea-jellies-pale 
That shine in low-tide pools, then disappear, lo, where? — 
Tissues of shape, too structureless for open sun and air. 



Flower o' Town, Flower o' Town, 
The swinging frocks, the smiling men. 
Let's turn around and smile again! 
The pied processional eager faces. 
The tilted chins, the airs and graces; 

What is the mode to-day? 

Heels high or low. 

Hands out or so, 

A haughty air or gay? 



Patterns to buy, patterns to buy. 
How do the souls dress when they die? 



[53 1 



THE SOUBRETTE 



Flower o' Town, Flower o' Town, 
Oh, fairy shoon and seraph crown, — 
How would they please this noisy town? 
Is there a Broadway in the Sky, 
Where souls may flutter when they die? 
What is the color, do you know. 
To hide a grief one must not show? 



[54] 



TEE CITY 



THE COAI^MINE 

Fire 

Run, said the Fire; 
Burn clear, desire. 



Clay 

Yields said the Clay, 
To-morrow? Nay. 



Bock 

Stand, said the Rock; 
Defy each shock. 



Forest 

Lift, quoth the Pine, 
To heaven my sign. 

IS5 1 



TEE COAL-MINE 



Glacier 

Said the great Glacier, Slow 
And still, I go. 



Dark 

The Dark cried, Hush! 
Night comes to crush. 

The Undercutter 

Ping, the electric starter! Downward drops the cage; 
Bembridge beds and Thanet sands, to the Cenozoic Age; 
Oolite and Yoredale rocks — Bump ! the Carboniferous 

Age, 
Fossil-fragments — and the gnawing in a sullen rage 
Of the undercut machine guarded by its greasy mage; 
Cutter -bar that shoots and vibrates, man its fury to 

assuage. 
And the motor's gasping toil aeons deep beneath the soil, 
Where the giant fems lie tranquil of the Carboniferous 

Age. 



[561 



THE COAL-MINE 



Dark 

Hush, cried the Night, 
Dark comes to blight. 
(But the clean winds of any dawn girdle the world with 
light.) 



Glacier 

Said the great Glacier, Slow 
And still, I go. 
(Millions of years, a town, the London tulips blow.) 



Forest 

Lift, quoth the Pine, 
To heaven my sign. 
(Now, deep-enribbed, he waits the sump-fuse of the mine.) 



Clay 

Yield, said the Clay, 
To-morrow? Nay. 
(This that was Csesar's tomb, — a foundry-pit to-day.) 



[571 



TEE COAL-MINE 



Rock 

The Rock said. Stand, 
Ruling the land. 
(Now a child sifts it through his tiny hand.) 



Fire 

The Fire said. Run, 
Mount, stars and sun! 
(This little pale torch-bearing Man outspeeds you, one by 
one.) 



[58] 



TEE CITY 



NIAGARA 



The water talked to the turbine 
At the intake's couchant knee : 

Brother, thy mouth is darkness 
Devouring me. 



I rush at the whirl of thy bidding; 

I pour and spend 
Through the wheel-pit's nether tempest. 

Brother, the end? 
Before fierce days of javelin, 

Before the cloudy kings of Ur, 
Before the Breath upon the waters, 

My splendors were. 



Red hurricanes of roving worlds. 
Huge wallow of the uncharted Sea, 

The formless births of fluid stars. 
Remember me. 



59 



NIAGARA 



A glacial dawn, the smoke of rainbows. 
The swiftness of the canoned west. 

The steadfast column of white volcanoes. 
Leap from my breast. 



But now, subterranean, mirthless, 

I tug and strain. 
Beating out a dance thou hast taught me 

With penstock, cylinder, vane. 
I am more delicate than moonlight. 

Grave as the thunder's rocking brow; 
I am genesis, revelation. 

Yet less than thou. 



By this I adjure thee, brother. 

Beware to offend ! 
For the least, the dumbfounded, the conquered. 

Shall judge in the end. 



The turbine talked to the man 
At the switchboard's cryptic key : 

Brother, thy touch is whirlwind 
Consuming me. 



[60] 



NIAGARA 



I revolve at the pulse of thy finger. 

Millions of power I flash 
For the muted and ceaseless cables 

And the engine's crash. 
Like Samson, fettered, blindfolded, 

I sweat at my craft; 
But I build a temple I know not. 

Driver and ring and shaft. 



Wheat-field and tunnel and furnace. 

They tremble and are aware. 
But beyond, thou compellest me, brother. 

Beyond these, where .^^ 
Singing like sunrise on battle, 

I travail as hills that bow; 
I am wind and fire of prophec3% 

Yet less than thou. 



By this I adjure thee, brother, 

Be slow to oflFend! 
For the least, the blindfolded, the conquered, 

Shall judge in the end. 



The man strove with his Maker 
At the clang of the power-house door : 



[61 



NIAGARA 



Lord, Lord, Thou art unsearchable. 
Troubling me sore. 



I have thrust my spade to the caverns; 

I have yoked the cataract; 
I have counted the steps of the planets. 

What thing have I lacked? 
I am come to a goodly country, 

Where, putting my hand to the plow, 
I have not considered the lilies. 

Am I less than Thou? 



The Maker spake with the man 
At the terminal-house of the line : 

For delight wouldst thou have desolation, 
O brother mine, 

And flaunt on the highway of nations 
A byword and sign? 



Have I fashioned thee, then, in my image 
And quickened thy spirit of old. 

If thou spoil my garments of wonder 
For a handful of gold? 

I wrought for thy glittering possession 
The waterfall's glorious lust; 

[62] 



NIAGARA 



It is genesis, revelation, — 
Wilt thou grind it to dust? 



Niagara, the genius of freedom, 

A creature for base command ! 
Thy soul is the pottage thou sellest; 

Withhold thy hand. 
Or take him and bind him and make him 

A magnificent slave if thou must — 
But remember that beauty is treasure 

And gold is dust. 



Yea, thou, returned to the fertile ground 

In the humble days to be, 
Shalt learn that he who slays a splendor 

Has murdered Me. 
By this I adjure thee, brother. 

Beware to offend! 
For the least, the extinguished, the conquered, 

Shall judge in the end. 



[63] 



THE CITY 



A SALUTATION TO RUSSIA 

Y OU, millions of muzhiks eating black bread and drinking 
vodka. 

Reeking, reeling, toiling without hope. 

You, the clods of a nation, patient, brutal, unforeseeing. 

Incalculable mass of the inner empire. 

Responding not to the unrest and hurtle of seething politi- 
cal parties. 

Like a vast hulk unmoved by the froth and foam of futile 
currents. 

We, America, salute you. 



Eager, disheveled, unwise students, tumultuous thinkers, 
revolutionists, 

Anarchists, socialists, steady autonomists, muzzled jour- 
nalists, audacious poets. 

Tremendous-brained tramps and vagrants. 

Drudging workers in factories, smiths and cunning arti- 
ficers at Warsaw and Vladimir, 



[64] 



A SALUTATION TO RUSSIA 



All the unheard-from army of craftsmen in ugly cities on 
the Dnieper and Dniester, 

We, America, salute you. 



Dilapidated, ashamed princes. 

Rapacious noblemen, unscrupulous, competent heads of 
bureaus, playing the great game. 

You who are helpless pawns on the board, fettered, intelli- 
gent or stupid, dumb or shrieking. 

Remembering Poles, spirited Lithuanians, sullen Finns, 
ballad-singing Letts, 

We, America, salute you. 



Orphans wailing at Kief and KishineflF and Rostoflf-on-Don, 
Hunted Semites squatting in cellars. 
Gaunt emigrants, your poor possessions in a handkerchief 
tied to the back. 

We, America, salute you. 



You, looking to symbols and signs for deliverance. 
Icon-worshipers standing by thousands in the five-domed 

temples of the White-Stone City, 
Chanting voices of gray-beards who kneel gazing toward 

the sunrise, 



05] 



A SALUTATION TO RUSSIA 



Haggards of the Caucasus, nomads, goat-hunters, cattle- 
breeders. 

Weather-beaten, innocent, elusive, 

Wild, patient women washing at fountains. 

Weavers of sacred patterns out of wool and satin for the 
scornful feet of unbelievers. 

Disheartened colonists on the desolate steppes. 

Nourishing arid creeds, Memnonites, Doukhobars, Molo- 
kanye; — 

All ye, looking to symbols and signs for deliverance. 
We, America, salute you. 



You, Cossacks, Imperial Guard, policemen. 

Low-browed, terrible in sodden obedience. 

Striking in the darkness, riding down high-hearted boys 

and pleading mothers. 
You, soldiers, sailors in mutiny, wreaking your grievances 

in the hideous language of Cronstadt, 
The savage sign-writing of maddened dull intelligences. 
We, America, salute you. 



You, rioters at Moscow, Odessa, Kherson, Nicolaieff, 
Mobs thinking yourselves free, puppets pulled by strings. 
Performing the crafty purposes of those who sit in high 
places far away. 



(66 J 



A SALUTATION TO RUSSIA 



Stooped humble parents and children, standing in line, 
waiting a dole of bread, 

We, America, salute you. 



You who are at the center, battlers, eager, serious, 
Aware, strenuous, hopeful. 

The League of Leagues, engineering quietly everywhere, 
The leaders in prison. 

You who have achieved the Douma and certain ambiguous 
manifestoes that make for freedom. 
We, America, salute you. 



All ye, unnumbered units of the huge immovable total. 
Ignorant of the planet you inhabit. 
Knowing nothing of the events you precipitate. 
Knowing nothing of your own meaning, 
Like dumb characters of a written word that do not under- 
stand what they spell. 
All such, starved wheat-sowers of the Black Lands, 
Half-blind burrowers in the coal-mines of the Don country, 
Frost-bitten woodcutters in the frozen, forsaken provinces. 
Crawling creatures across the endless caravan-routes, 
Cursing boatmen on Matoushka Volga, 
Shrill bazaar-men at Nizhni-Novgorod, 
Sleigh-drivers across the obliterated white versts. 



[67] 



A SALUTATION TO RUSSIA 



Dead peasants piled in scurrilous heaps off in heathen 
Manchuria, 

We, America, salute you. 



You, led to your fruitless death on Red Sunday 
Before your Lictle Father's palace. 

You, reckless martyrs too trustful, who have achieved the 
soul's liberty, 

We, America, salute you. 



You, O Romanoff, walking softly at painted Tsarkoe- 
Seloe, 

Waxen, wavering, kind-hearted. 

With white hands that do not know how to grip and eyes 
that have no vision. 

You, O Romanoff, with one foot rocking a cradle and the 
other trampling out a million human ambitions 

As a girl might crush a puff-ball to see it disappear in 
smoke; 

Unhappy Nicholas, wearing the badge of mastership, 

Groping like a timid apprentice among the appalling dy- 
namos that generate war and peace. 
We, America, salute you. 



[68] 



A SALUTATION TO RUSSIA 



You, O child, watched by all the Russias, prayed for all the 

night long, 
The intolerable night of darkness-bound races, 
You with the star of hope on your forehead. 
Frail swaddling, heir to the long horror and the threat of 

the White Terror, 
Blissful child, cooing at the glitter of a sword and the 

boom of artillery. 

We, America, salute you. 



[69] 



THE CITY 



THE OUTCAST 

1 HOUGH I go softly in fine linen I know the heart of an 

outcast. 
For an outcast knocked at my door and I opened to her. 
An outcast of London, light-o'-love, night-moth of the 

Strand. 
Forged letters she brought and a gentle, plausible story. 
Sinuous movements were hers and the liquid eyes of a 

fawn, 
A frightened, distrustful glance, always haunted by 

dangers. 
And a smile that blew over her face like a breeze on a 

shadowy pool. 



When I took her I had not the key to her curious history. 
But when she fled, secret and sudden, in darkness of night. 
Leaving an unfinished lie behind her, written to baffle us, 
And her things tossed regardless. 
The knowledge came and it grew. 



[70] 



THE OUTCAST 



I often think since of her sudden resolve for goodness 
That led her out of the mirk of High Holborn straight to 

our door; 
To our hill and our brook and our country; 
Her wish to make herself clean and put on new garments. 
To forget what she had been, all 
The glare and the horror of London. 



I think how she strove, while she served in our house, for 

perfection. 
And polished the glasses, set out the silver and linen. 
And sat, at day's end, a slim figure alone in the kitchen. 
I am sure that she wondered and yearned over days like 

ours, of endeavor. 
Two lives bound together by simple, pure-hearted love. 
I recall how she stood and laughed like a child one evening. 
To see the great moon rise over the wall of the garden: 
She said it looked strange and romantic. 



Then, how it all happened perhaps I reach out and 

divine, — 
A black, a terrible wave rushed at her, 
A tidal, a Seventh Wave, huge, irresistible. 
And It roared in her ears, "You are ours. 
Come back to us, back to us!" 



[71] 



TEE OUTCAST 



And because her feet were frail and had many times stum- 
bled. 

And her unresting heart had learned not the slow power 
of patience. 

It swept her back to the sea with the rest of the flotsam and 
jetsam. 



Out there, I suppose, she floats, taking specious color and 

buoyancy 
For a little while 
From the surge and swash of the pitiless sea that called 

her. 
So, though I go softly in ways of peace, I know the heart 

of an outcast. 
For an outcast knocked at my door and I opened to her. 
Vernon, France. 



[72] 



THE CITY 



TRAVESTIES 



Sometimes a lost face washes up 

In pools of passing men; 

It flashes wanly on my sight 

And is submerged again. 



It startles me with its resemblance 
To eyes a friend once wore, — 

Yes, so his whole look might have been, 
Given something less or more. 



Nature, the Jester or Empiric, 
Thus in her multitudes 

Dissects before a thinking mind 
The process of her moods. 



See the straight brows, the massive head, 
Yon drayman with his whip, 

[73] 



TRAVESTIES 



A statesman's profile, till you note 
The brutal under lip. 



Cross-sections of heredity. 

Psychology laid bare, 
These faces chart the shifting shoals 

Called — human character; 



Revealing quicksands of despair 
Out of which some may climb; 

Pointing satirical extremes. 
Kindness become a crime. 



Here is a splendid negative 
Without — the illuming spark, 

A saint's nobility of line. 
Soul stumbling in the dark. 



Oh, mocking strange resemblances. 

Pathetic, cruel, bad. 
Once did you grasp — and yet you lost 

The birthright others had! 



[74] 



TRAVESTIES 



Oh, poor lost faces that wash up 

So like the good and great. 
Whose hand withdrew the ultimate touch. 

What need, what law, what fate? 
New York. 



[75] 



THE CITY 



HANDS 



vJH, wonderful hands of toilers. 

Graved with the signs of your crafts. 

White, pricked fingers of sewers 

And gnarly hands of the field; 

Stained hands of textile-dyers, 

Flying hands of shuttle and wheel; 

I love your pathetic, outspoken. 

Unconscious biographies. 

I honor you, hands of toilers; 

I kneel and I kiss your hands ; 

Ribbed hands of the storm-beaten sailor. 

Withered hands of weary age. 

I have seen the hands of a baby. 

Little and wandering, 

Crumpled like half-shut rose-leaves, 

Vague and adorable, — 

Like a tiny wind in tiny trees 

Saying nothing, murmuring. 

I have seen the hands of death. 

Explicit, fixed, and stern, 



[76] 



HANDS 



i 



Autobiographic, 

Revealing unalterably. 

I honor you, hands of toilers; 

I kneel and I kiss your hands. 



[77] 



TEE CITY 



PEOPLE 



1 SEE them go up and down the road 

And I sit beside them in public places. 

They move past the curtained windows of houses 

Where I visit with friends reading or talking. 

I thread in and out among them 

In shops of beautiful, useful, or curious things. 

And all through the crowded streets 

I mingle with them every day. 

People, people. 



They are the big audiences of which I am one 

At plays and concerts. 

They laugh or they sneer or they kneel. 

And the air is charged with their thoughts 

And thrills with their feelings. 

They touch my shoulder 

Or they flatten to let me pass. 

And our eyes meet, 

But do not exchange any signal. 

[78] 



PEOPLE 



We are dumb, we cannot speak. 

We continue our walk as if we were mutually invisible. 
Mayhap we are never to see each other again, — 
People, people. 



I do not know where they come from 

Nor whither they are bound, 

Nor what are their tastes, their needs, or their frenzied 

desires. 
Name, character, social position, we are nothing to each 

other. 
We sit and survey each other with a polite, dull stare. 
People, strangers. 
That is all. 



u 



Sometimes I turn around and look twice 

And I find the other person doing likewise. 

And we are both ashamed. 

Something in a single face compels me; 

I am startled or ponder deeply. 

Sometimes for a week I remember two or three faces 

Of people, people that have passed me on the street. 

Or whom I have covertly watched for ten minutes 

On a train or a bus. 

Or in a glittering restaurant where each table 

Leads its own life like an islet in midocean. 

[79] 



PEOPLE 



I remember the shabby man who sat opposite me 
And covered his eyes, unaware of his surroundings. 
His lips moved as if he were saying over to himself 
Words that had bitten deep. 

The hand that covered his eyes was gaunt and toil-stained 
And shaped like the hand of a sensitive person. 



I remember a girl who rushed into the hotel lobby. 

Gazing straight ahead of her, not seeing anything; 

She was very young 

With a spot of bright color on each cheek 

And seemed to have been crying. 

Her eyes were darker than dark doorways at night. 



I remember an old couple on a frivolous boulevard: 
They had the pink, hard complexions and solid shoul- 
ders 
That are bred of the open fields. 
They were dressed like rustics. 
Kindly and calmly they surveyed the city 
And the futilities of the shop-windows 
With the bearing of august personages 
Who smile indulgently at the play of underlings. 



[80] 



PEOPLE 



But of all the thousands and thousands 

That ha\'e for a moment imprinted themselves on 

my vision, 
The greater number are absolutely wiped out. 
They are the clouds that swim over a plain. 
Appearing, changing shape, dissolving. 
Leaving no sign. 
They are migratory birds 
Flying silently in a long wedge or zigzag 
Very high up. 
You hear a faint call, 

You look once, but before you can look a second time 
They are melted into the blue. 
Clouds, dim shapes, bird- voyagers. 
Swim past us these streams of strange people. 
London, England. 



81 



THE COUNTRY 



\ 



THE COUNTRY 



UP A BROOK 

vJNE perfect memory, like a drop of dew, 

Clasps all the brightness, rainbow shimmer, and hue 

Of the Andalusian May time we rode through. 



Forever moonlit, glowed the blossoming olive trees, 
Silverly dim beneath the iridescent breeze, 
Arched lanes wherein a rider takes his ease. 



Moon-glints of petals powdering one's hair, — 
Then, cunning scent of grape-flowers in the air, 
And vineyard laborers to salute and stare. 



Next came a lustrous river we pointed toward. 

How gallantly our horses took the ford. 

And snorting, dripping, cantered up the sward 



[85] 



UP A BROOK 



Of the further shore, all flower-gemmed, until 

We struck the shining gravel of a rill 

That sped from some sierra, snow-flushed still; 



And here we let the white brook be our guide, 
(Liking its border-lushness, prankt and pied.) 
And lead us up the dancing mountain-side. 



So many golden things, the winged broom. 
Spun globes of golden thistle, feather and plume. 
Small herbs that spread a tapestry of bloom. 
Like stained-glass purpleness in a dusky room. 



Strange glories, too, high as a young lad's hopes. 
And harlequin faces poised on perilous slopes. 
Love-in-a-mist, wistful as one who gropes. 



Perforce at last we chose the paths that veered 
Tremblingly down, ledges our horses feared. 
Goat-trails and cactus-hands and aloes speared 



[S6] 



UP A BROOK 



In warlike ranks, till path became a lane 
Hedged by such elder-thickets all a-rain 
With fluttery petals — then, the road again 



And our lone village. Wild-rose whitely hung 
Her fairy clothes the thorns and rocks among, 
And pomegranates were with scarlet trumpets strung. 



We rode into the west, where Mijas swam deep blue. 

Meadows — a dying billow of like hue, 

(Borrage it was, miraculously blue). 

And those great sweeps of shadow loved by you. 



Above, a long cascade of misty light. 
The Sim, cloud-veiled, making a far place bright 
Between two peaks, that to our reverent sight, 
Said Pax Vobiscum at the radiant threshold of the 
night. 
Cartama, Spain. 



87 



TEE COUNTRY 



SELF 



IT was a great gray world 

On a bleak hilltop, 

EuU of winds and clouds and crows 

And driven leaves. 
The wind whistled through my flowing hair 
And I said, "I know how trees feel, 
And waterfalls that rush and toss and reel. 
And big clouds racing in the upper air." 



In the wood once when I was young 

A band of children hunted me: 

I never peeped a cry. 

But lay covertly a long while 
Within a crumpled copse of thorn and brake. 
Imagining I was a breathless fox 
In his cunning hole among the rocks, 
And I let the snowstorm pelt me flake by flake. 



[88 



SELF 



I talked with a scrap-iron peddler 

Who lived, roaming in his cart, 

Or drinking out of a black bottle, 

Under a whitethorn bush. 
His chiefest friends were his drink and the hedgerow soli- 
tude, 
And I envied the weather-burned codger his rags and crust, 
As I dug my toes in his highway's velvet dust. 
And I vowed with him that his two chief friends were good. 



Once as I passed along the street 

I caught a convict's eye. 

Sullen and slinking, but gay; 

And he challenged me with that impudent look. 
Winking, *'We're comrades, you and I!" 
At once I plunged to his depths, unrepenting as he; 
I wanted to strike his handcuffs, set him free. 
Cry, "Off!" — see him run as a bird you uncage to the 
sky. 



So I say I divine by flashes 

And I know the hearts of other people: 

I can be whatever I choose beneath the sun, 

A beast or a mountain spring or an arrogant emperor. 



[89] 



SELF 



But 7, I, sacred /, I am walled, inviolate. 
Though I sit and sew like any woman by the fire; 
I am difficult, occult and baffling all desire. 
Of all the world I only am unknowable as Fate. 
Vernon, France. 



[90] 



TEE COUNTRY 



SECRETS 

W E have a dingle where all day, all night, 
The brown-eyed brook sings for delight. 
Sings liquidly. 
The blackbird answers, 
(There's a chap for you, 
Skimming the meadow-rue 
Or diving down!) 
Sings , * ' Quonk-a-ree, ' ' 
A gurgly kind of note. 
All glee. 

The brook, before it spreads out in the swamp, 
Lisps, answering back. 
And then the catbird cries, a jester stanch, 
Swinging on what we call the Singing Branch. 
(For all the birds light there to chant a stave, — 
A dead tree bending by the brook's cool wave.) 
The catbird flutes the redwing's bar right over, 



[91 



SECRETS 



Adding a trill or two, the madcap rover; 
'Hark ye," he whistles, like minstrel with his story, 
Oh, such a clever improvisatore ! 
The Dingle, Westchester County. 



192] 



TEE COUNTRY 



THE NIGHTINGALE 



1 HERE'S a mist of song abroad. 
Bubble and tinkle and trill; 
Heard you a sudden note compelling the pulse to stand 

still, 
Deep, with a heart-pang in it and the ecstasy of a laud? 



When the master lifts his theme 
No question of which is which; 
He speaks like a star in the twilight, grave, distinguished, 
and rich, 

And you stand, face upturned and quiet. 
Like a man in a heavenly dream. 



That's the nightingale's genius, to pour 
And spend himself, over and over. 



[83] 



TEE NIGHTINGALE 



Wild waterfall daring the edge and curveting over. 
Aye, listen and learn if you can how to praise and adore. 
You human lover! 
GivERNY, France. 



[94] 



TEE COUNTRY 



THE FUGITIVE MOMENT 

1 HE spindling lamps of autumn lit the wood; 

All tranced it stood. 
Ripples of green in spring-like under-plaees. 

Hill-blue for wonder-spaces. 



Thin curly leaves, they floated on the stream 

In a soft dream. 
Dreaming themselves a golden argosy. 

Or pirate-ships that flee. 



Semblance of footsteps stirred the quietness, 

Vaguer and less 
Than twilight birds asleep. Whispered and spoke 

Small ghosts of tiny folk. 



The large magnificent sun poured like a spate; 
Played intricate 

[95] 



THE FUGITIVE MOMENT 



Staves of rich sunset color, nobly blent. 
Then, of a sudden, went. 



How gray and grave and empty grew our wood ! 

Cathedral-like it stood. 
Radiance of music, windows, people, gone. 

An old stooped verger gathering books, alone ! 
Unadilla Forks, New York. 



[96] 



THE COUNTRY 



THE LITTLE HOUSE BY THE SEA 

(e. h. p.) 

1 HE sea flowed off from the edge of the door 

And the white moon stepped inside; 
Her garment swept across the floor. 
Silver and wide. 



Like songs that hover and escape 
The hearth-fire stirred; 

A crystal crimson dragon shape, 
It crept and purred. 



The moonlight and the firelight strove 

For mastery : 
'I am phantom fairy vanishing Love.'* 

"And I am Memory." 



'I am sweetness of remembered days. 
The ancient Dream." 

[97] 



TEE LITTLE HOUSE BY THE SEA 



'I am the white torch of Desire, 
Her swift feet's gleam." 



The moonlight stepped across the floor. 

Fancy set free. 
And all night at the open door 

Shone the great sea. 
Deer Point, Chebeagtje Island, Maine. 



[98] 



TEE COUNTRY 



FIREFLIES 



XlER spangles are the only things j^ou see 

As her invisible skirt sways airily; 

Her light feet do not wake the littlest bird. 

Not the least gauzy sigh of tissue can be heard, 

Now here, now there, the spangles flash and flit, 

Now up, now down. 

Caught in the tangles 

Of the gray dancer's gown ; 

Only her rhythmic pauses you may guess 

By the spent spangles 

Paling down. 

The Dingle, Westchesteb County. 



[99 



THE COUNTRY 



MIDSUMMER TREES 



Some trees drink deep draughts beside brooks. 

Delighting in gurgle and black moisture; 

Coolness and strength they draw up into their limbs 

And pay it out for the passer-by to enjoy 

In the shadow and amplitude of their noble branches 

And in their clean, shining, exquisite leaves. 

Thin and translucent for green light to trickle through, 

Harmoniously curved as musical instruments. 



They instill fortitude by their robust trunks. 
Moulded as individually as men's bodies. 
Valiant and comfortable; 
Some shaggy. 

Some glossy as lithe animals; 
All of them full of kindness and tree-humor 
And the dignity that springs from belonging to one place. 
The Dingle, Westchester County. 



[100] 



THE COUNTRY 



EPHEMERA 



1 HE orchard like a green-robed maid 

Is kneeling, praying 
At the gold vesper-hour, — how strange 

Such beauty is heart-slaying! 



Day is so wonderful that I 

Tremble to meet the morrow; 

The bird sings with such wasteful joy 
He smites the deeps of sorrow. 



The flame of dawn wings vaporous 

From world to world. 
I cannot grasp it ; it must pass 

As youth goes, comet-whirled, 



[1011 



EPHEMERA 



A rainbow dust, a dance, a dream. 

War and imagination; 
Then, one gray morning, withered tears 

And slow realization. 
Croton, New York. 



[102] 



THE COUNTRY 



THE DESERTED HOTEL 

A HUGE white caravel it rides, 
Hoisting its desolate human storj% 

And, as a billow, it bestrides 

The crest of mountain promontory. 



A cow-bell wanders in the moon. 
Clangs out its movements wearily. 

Like a bell-buoy that all night long 
Sways in the ocean drearily. 



The sheer cliff falls away amazed 

Lito a twilight reach of valley. 
Milk-white with seas of fog, moon-dazed, 

Towards which puts out the abandoned galley 



Night washes up on distant hills 
Diffused as faint timidity, 

[103] 



THE DESERTED HOTEL 



"VMiere villages for fishery lights 
Jewel the blue liquidity. 



Like tattered sails the white fogs drip. 
The rope-bound house shrieks windily, 

Ard all night like a rushing ship 
Motionless, white, rides out to sea. 
Overlook Mountain, the Catskills. 



[104] 



TEE COUNTRY 



FOR THE LAUNCHING OF A LITTLE BOAT 

{To the music of an Amalfi harcarola) 

LjITTLE boat, go, dream and float 

On the Unadilla River, 
Singing treble of many a stone 
And the gracious undertone 

Of hid currents in the river; 
Tremolo of dawn-winds blown 

By the Unadilla River. 



Little boat, go, dream and float, 

(Thou art so young upon the river!) 
Past great willows that dip and drown, 
The hemlock wood that darkles down. 
Fathoms down in the darkling river; 
At eve the firefly for thy prow 
And one star on the mountain's brow 
Above the Unadilla River. 



[105] 



FOR THE LAUNCHING OF A LITTLE BOAT 



Little boat, ah, let me float 

And learn the sweet soul of a river, 
Deeps too pure for weariment. 
Loveliness of long content 
On the Unadilla River. 
Unadilla Forks, New York. 



[106] 



TEE COUNTRY 



ECSTASIES 



vJH, liquid bubble, sweet — sweet — 

Brook, was it you, 

Or a bird that flew. 
Or the lilt of a wind on flying feet? 



Oh, dream, oh divine! Who caroled us this? 
Wild plum, was it you. 
Snow-white 'gainst the blue, 
That suddenly spoke from your full heart of bliss? 
GivERNY, France. 



[107 



THE COUNTRY 



KINGDOMS AND PRINCIPALITIES 

vJUT to my woodlands as I walk 

All pleasant scents are mine: 
The healthy smell of earth and leaf. 

The spice-breath of the pine, 
Balm of young buds and water-wafts 

And odors fairy-fine 
Of blackberry blossom and tangled loops 

Of shad-bush and grape-vine. 



Out to my woodlands as I walk 

My happy eyes bathe deep 
In color, gray and tawny trunks. 

The great glad plumy sweep 
Of green, — the dance of old romance. 
White clouds, — white flags they leap 
From airy walls, like bugle calls 
Old loyalties to keep. 



[108 1 



KINGDOMS AND PRINCIPALITIES 



In my dark woodlands as I dream 

I float upon a wave 
Of various harmonies, inner all, 

A bird-song, brooding grave, 
Twinkle of little claws and feet, 

The water's liquid stave, 
The catbird's jocund mimicry, 

(He, the slim greenwood knave!) 



In my large woodlands as I lie 

All loves and wars I fold; 
The still small loves of beady eyes, 

Sly mother-eyes that scold; 
Blue little loves of stealing flowers; 

A splendid clash of old 
'Twixt clouds and winds and mountain pines 

And autumns on the wold. 
And brave free laughter of high birds, 

Vague sagas epic-bold. 
Delaware Water Gap. 



[109] 



TEE COUNTRY 



MOONLIGHT 



1 HE woodland moon is young Elaine, 
Brocaded, rich. 

The night-sky pales, her luster trails 
Across the fences, fills the brain 
With arrows of a glittering pain, 
A true-love or a witch. 
Or a White Vision, which — ? 

The crescent moon is young Elaine. 



The brooks go wandering, lost for her, 

Slim forest lure. 
Through tapestried sheaves of volatile leaves 
(A thousand nodding orbs they stir) 
Her bright shape melts; clap boot and spur. 
Ride after, after! gallant sir! 
The whole world follows, mad for her. 



[110] 



MOONLIGHT 



The old spent moon is Pierrot, 

Pale-faced and thin; 
If the hour lags, in motley rags, 
He trips it where the dullards go 
And tumbles to amuse the show. 
He wears a pasteboard grin, 
His poor heart sick within. 
The moon forgot is Pierrot. 
Cornish, New HAMPsmRE. 



[Ill] 



THE COUNTRY 



APRIL AT GIVERNY 

At dusk the great trees like to lean 
And net the golden sun between 

Their fretted aisles. 
The stream that lies all locked by day 
Takes cloud-like wings and soars away 

Aerial miles. 



Soft odors by the dusk distilled 
Hover like birds — the wood is thrilled 

With memories 
And new-born hopes that flit abroad 
Worshiping April, their dear god. 

On nights like these. 



[112 1 



TEE COUNTRY 



SPRING BY THE GUADALHORCE 

IT 'S spring now with the almond trees 

Of Spain, 
And girls go picking by the rio 

Slim flowers in the cane. 
And in the Guadalhorce meadows 

Glimmers the faint green grain. 



All one sierra that I know 

Is pink as childhood's dream 

With little trees that fluff like feathers 
In every rift and seam; 

Arroyo and casita, — all 

Are misty with their gleam. 



And last year I was one of them; 

A name they chose I took; 
I visited the miller's kitchen. 

How spotless-white its look! 

[113] 



SPRING BY THE GUADALHORCE 



I rode upon a red-fringed mule 
To ford a swollen brook; 

I knelt within their gold-dim church 
And prayed and kissed the Book. 



Oh, dark-eyed dreamy girls I loved, 

Like pictures are ye now 
Within a hidden fairy-tale, 

And more unreal, I trow. 
Am I to you than that strange shape 

Upon your votive prow 
Hung before Mary-of-the-Sea; 
And yet, Conchita, once you signed 

The Cross upon my brow. 



It's spring now with the almond trees 

Of Spain! 
Last night I dreamed of mountain-paths. 

That I was there again. 
Pulling narcissus by the brooks; 

White petals blew like rain 
And a mad goatherd joyously 

Lilted love's pain. 



114] 



THE COUNTRY 



TWILIGHT-WATCHERS 



A LONELY mother at a cottage window; 

Two lovers who are silent ere they speak. 

Not daring, 

Threading a by-lane 

With elder-flowers vaguely white and odorous; 

Young girls whose hearts are breaking when the 

west is red. 
Not knowing why, 

A boy who leans upon the barnyard gate 
And thinks of many things, 
Not knowing why; — 
These listen for the coming 
0/ the Gray Lady. 



A strong man with a spirit wrought to tears 
Because of wistful eves that haunt him. 



[115] 



TWILIGET-WA TCHERS 



Eyes he cannot find, — 
Such an one listens to the footsteps 
Of the Gray Lady. 
The Dingle, Westchester County. 



[116] 



TEE COUNTRY 



THE CANADA ROAD 



1 HERE was a night when we sallied forth to try. 
After a storm, the Canada road with its nooks. 
The night was full of the music of rain-brimmed brooks; 
The grasses and trees chimed in from their singing-books, 
And the man and I. 



Little rivulets dashed and flashed white feet in the dark. 
Crying Hither and Thither wherever the moonbeams 

glowed, 
"Whither, O sister?" they asked the white silent road 
That ever between the woodlands flowed and flowed. 
And the leaves whispered Hark I 



The birches clapped little hands in a musical beat; 
The poplars rained in a secret way and the pines gave call 
To the waves of the sea; up we went by the brook's steep 
wall 



[117] 



THE CANADA ROAD 



Till we came to the whitest brightest torrent of all 
Like a cloud at our feet. 



Up there at the glen-head stood the beautiful moon 
With the waterfall leaping away and down the hill; 
Smiled the moon at us her ancient smile and still. 
Saying, "There's many a heart like yours I fill 
With my Song of the Golden Shoon.'* 



The man made a strong little sound in his throat, a reply 
That the clouds and stars and the rain- washed grass under- 
stand. 
For the gift of the Golden Shoon and the hand-in-hand 
The night gave thanks and the brooks and the moon- 
bathed land 

And he and I. 
Cornish, New Hampshire. 



[118] 



THE COUNTRY 



THE END OF THE CAMP 



XvAKE the cold last ashes out. 

Camp-fire days are done. 
Will the wild hawks and the deer 

Miss us at next set of sun? 
Outram with his awkward ways, 

(How we used to gibe!) 
Had a lurking fellowship 

With some shaggy tribe. 



But our Dark-Girl, Tawny-Brow, 

With her s^oul of song, 
Was a sister to the trees 

And the oread throng. 
Outram, pack your duffle-bag. 

Shoulder each his kit, 
How the wood-folk will rejoice 

When the humans flit. 



[119] 



TEE END OF THE CAMP 



Scarlet autumn with her torch 

Soon will touch each wold 
And the hickory leaves down-circling 

Brim the brooks with gold. 
Then the gray wood-folk will rustle 

Tip-toe through the frost 
Till tae long white drifted winter 

When our trails are lost. 



Next year! What, man, you're not with us? 

We shall miss your might 
And your deep -bawled chorus when our 

Dark-Girl flutes good-night. 
Look, who lag there in the twilight 

Where the woods divide? 
Why, it's Tawny-Brow, not singing, 

Outram, tamed his stride! 
Woodstock, New York. 



[120] 



TEE COUNTRY 



RADIANCES 

Radiance of budding leaf-tips, 

Spring's eager flight; 
Radiance of skimming dragon-flies 
Gem-bright. 



Dawn-cobwebs, glistening meadows, 

A bobolink; 
An earth-brown emerald-lustrous 

Pool-brink. 



All summer long the limpid 
Bright-stepping brook; 

A quick fawn's woodland-glancing 
Shy look. 



A dusky firefly-spangled 
Thicket in June; 

11211 



RADIANCES 



Bursting through leafy meshes 
The blurred gold moon. 



Quiver and billowy motion 
Of furtive things; 

In treetops, flash of silent 
Red wings. 



The fathomless glow of loving 

In human eyes. 
Swift, brilliant, more mysterious 

Than starry skies. 
The Dingle, Westchester County. 



[122] 



THE COUNTRY 



AFTER-GLOW 



IVlY twilit mountains, — how the night sweeps up 
And fills with cloudy glory the valley's godlike cup. 
Look ! how the sunset lingers on that snowy height. 
Like a clear-tinted Dream that will not vanish quite, 
A hovering Brightness more mysterious than shade, 
A beckon of Joy ethereal, unafraid, 
More solemn than the music that in Silence lies 
Or that last Vision yet to come when death shall dim our 
eyes. 
SoGLio, Switzerland. 



[123 



THE COUNTRY 



THE EXPRESSIONIST 

(by w. m. e.) 

v^OULD I but make the twilight stars to sing 
Upon my canvas, kindle May reborn 
To sweep along the valley, call the morn 
To flash across the world its crimson wing. 
Unleash the chains of the bright brooks of spring 
That weary hearts might hear them, they, the worn 
With life's long sickness, those who laugh to scorn 
Plain joys of earth, — to set them wondering ! 
Ah, could one picture veritably show 
The soul of fact, a commonplace's might. 
It would interpret, quicken some man's sight, — 
As when at sunset dusty toilers go 
Languidly homeward through a street below. 
Procession-like, bathed in a heavenly light. 



[124] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



SPAIN 



A PALE pink city like a withered rose 

Tossed by a poet down who serves the midnight oil, 

Flung to a wounded knight, home-turning after toil, 

The rich and cloistral memory comes and goes 

Of Salamanca, meditative wholly, 

A tattered precious document of such 

As builded and lived greatly, hazarding much. 

Or Gothic abbots, pacing melancholy. 



Tawny Toledo, throned in alabaster, 

A doom-bound insolent princess, ever waits — 

For what? So slow the tide of life drifts through her gates 

Wrack of the dying sea ebbs faster. 



Segovia's time-stained prow puts out afar. 
Steered 'twixt gigantic arches. 
Look twice! A phantom army, yelling, marches 
To front the huge frown of her Alcazar. 

[127] 



SPAIN 



Rock leaping out of rock, Plasencia's bastions hew 
And lift a sculptured challenge to set fierce blood a-quiver. 
Zoned savagely by swiftness of a river 
Terrifically blue. 



White Cadiz, buoyant on a slender stem 
Of land, a lustrous lotus-flower, floats, 
White-petaled, towers and turrets and w^inged boats. 
Wearing the sapphire sea for diadem. 



Alcantara, war-broken, ruined, untrod. 

Speared on its precipice, an eagle's nest. 

By chasmed Tagus, roaring to the west, 

Rearing against that Bridge, the triumph for a god. 



[128] 



Il 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



CAMILLA RETURNING FROM ABROAD 



LjIKE a lost ballad straying to this age 

From days long since, 
A mystic spell chanted by barefoot mage. 

Or an elf-prince 
Leaping the enchanted hedge, a missal-page 

Alive with lovely tints. 



So, flushed with history's glamoury you come, 

Camilla Crane, 
Listening to ghostly armies, dust and hum 

On an Assyrian plain. 
Music of buried cities, flute and drum, 

An aubade's love-refrain. 



I see you, a crowned Personage, step 

Within our door. 
The radiance of rose-windows on your cheek, 

A chiseling hoar 

[129 1 



CAMILLA RETURNING FROM ABROAD 



Of moonlit angel, immemorial peak 

Sculptured to soar, 
Gemming your silence ere you speak. 



Your gray eyes hold the wonder and the height 

Of a lone pyramid. 
Old mysteries droop, rune and strange Gaulish rite 

Beneath their childlike lid; 
Stone kings, calm effigies, a templed site 

The timeless plains amid. 



Not the same child, a new child you return. 

Treasuring the glance 
Of shy essential kindreds, nymphs that yearn, 

A choral dance 
Of exquisite dreams reborn, your soul's 

Ancestral heritance. 



[130] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE GOATHERD-POET 



I HEARD a swarthy goatherd, thrilled with love. 
Sing, as he led his horned flocks above 
The iris-crags of Alhaurin el Grande, 
Ah, full of waters and snowy like a dove! " 



You will not learn it from the travelers' books. 
Its snowy whiteness, deep-blue distant looks 
Toward sinuate sierras, wave on wave. 
Its babble of mill-wheels and mountain brooks. 



How it clings, winding up the glen's rough brink, 
— Its bright white crowded streets that seem to think 
The world's top is the Hermitage up there, — 
Splashed with geranium-balconies richly pink. 



It flows out on its edges to such sweep 

Of lustrous vineyards, rain-washed and a-leap, 

[1311 



TEE GOATHERD-POET 



Of olive-orchards silver-gray with bloom, 
As if the moonlight lived there, half-asleep. 



On April twilights you might see Her pass. 
Upheld on high, trembling through golden glass, 
'The Virgin of the Solitude!" they whisper. 
And all the heads bow down like wind-blown grass. 



I heard a swarthy goatherd, thrilled with love^ 
Sing, as he led his dappled flocks above 
The dripping crags of Alhaurin el Grande, 
*' Ah, full of waters and snotoy like a dove! " 



\ 132 ] 



ON TEE HIGHROAD 



TO A NYMPH AT ARANJUEZ 



X OISED in the wrinkled light and shade. 

Most transitory yet still. 
Tiptoe thou glances t down the glade. 

Quick as a daffodil. 



In this neglected garden, frost 
Silvers the pink shut roses 

And faintly shimmers, pearly-tossed. 
The gray-laced elm-tree closes. 



Brave gleams thy marble surge of hair; 

Thy hand, a listening shell 
To catch the lovely secret murmurs 

That in such silence dwell. 



Cold sparkle of Castilian snows. 
Thou heedest not, white elf, 

[133] 



TO A NYMPH AT ARANJUEZ 



But rapt apart in thine own weather 
Thou smilest to thyself. 



Blithe with the youthful ancientness 

Of all earth-solitude, 
I see thee, flitting, motionless. 

Imperially nude. 



[134] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE ILLUMINATED CANTICLE 

(Belonging to Philip II, and now in the Escorial) 

I CARRY the great Singing-Book 

Of the pale king's. 
Over its rich staves peacocks look, 
Like birds that dip into a brook; 
And all its edges flow with sedges, 
With rainbows, berries, jeweled wings, 
Or jesting pranks, or heavenly things. 



Fray Andres made it at Leon 

And good Fray Julian; 
They decked it till it laughed and shone 
With every hue, rose-red, sea-blue. 
And where Magnificat upran 
They spread an angel, blessing man. 



The sick king peers above my hands 

But makes no sound; 
He seeks and seeks in all his lands, 

[135] 



TEE ILLUMINATED CANTICLE 



Yet finds no peace, to bring surcease 
Of those cries from the underground 
And gnawing flames that ring him round. 



The kind monks in their cloister sat. 

Beneath a bell-tower tall. 
They painted in the juicy figs 

That burst and fall. 
The braided nests of grass and twigs. 
And priekly -pears and lacelike tares 
That make a pattern on the wall; 
Fray Andres drew a purple snail 
Because its shape was curved and small. 



The king — he has a pinched long face, 

A bloodless lip; 
And his cold stare would find no grace 
In children's arts or mothers' hearts; 
Now he is old, his trembling grip 
Has lost life's best, letting love slip. 



I fear him, yet I pity, too; 

When mass is done 
I rock in dreams of gold and blue. 



[136] 



TEE ILLUMINATED CANTICLE 



Chanting for him a grave-song grim, 
Laughing to think how many a one 
Will stand here, when the king has gone. 
Will turn the rich leaves of the Book, 
And never fear his dreadful look. 



1137] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



AN ANDALUSIAN VILLAGE 



1 SAW a village yesterday 

Float like a mirage rosy-gray. 

Too light for solid ground. 

The whitewashed Ermita, the flocks. 

The roofs, the threshing-floors, the rocks 

Delectably were drowned 
In a gray drift of almond-blows. 
In clouds the color of a rose, 

And faint sierras phantom-crowned. 



The flushed mists moved, sheep of the sun. 
That wind and vanish one by one. 

Between the fluted hiUs; 
And young girls I remember, too. 
Whose aprons in the sunlight blew. 

And gray pigs by the rills; 
The Guadalhorce's lilac loops 
Where Casarabonela scoops 



[138] 



AN AND ALU SI AN VILLAGE 



A hollow in the hills; 
The Moorish ruin where vision speeds 
To distant towns like clustered seeds 

A striding sower spills. 



It is a village I have dreamed, — 

The clouds, the mists, the roofs that gleamed. 

The soft trees winged for flight; 

The shining clothes spread out to dry. 

The belfry arched against the sky, — 

I've dreamed it many a night. 
Often in childhood's slumber deep, 
I sought this Andalusian steep 

And laughed for pure delight. 
Cartama, Spain. 



[139] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE MOSQUE AT CORDOBA 

A MULTITUDE of columns and a sense 

Of forest mystery, 
Of hushed and cryptic messages flying — whence? 
Through inter-arch of branches charmed from sound, 
Down endless trails that dwindle, leading hence 

Far back to buried springs of history. 



[140] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



GRANADA 



Cherry-blossoms at Granada, 

White against white peaks of snows; 

Rosy sunsets at Granada 

Kindling those far peaks of snows; 

Silver rains and fruit-tree petals 

Fluttering like drifts of snows; 

Arched above the cloud-crowned mountains 

Thin miraculous rainbows. 

How they shone and melted downward. 

Slipped between the cherry blows; 

And at eve the nightingales 

In their water-loving eyries 

Of the Garden of Adarves 

Sang an opening interlude 

To the listening white iris. 



In the ivory Court of Lions 
Hum the multitudinous bees, 
Through the airy subtile ceilings 

[141] 



GRANADA 



Interlaced like slender trees. 
In and out and singing, seeking, 
"Went the ancient Moorish bees 
Through the fairy honeycombing 
Of the Moorish masonries. 
Sons of the Alhambra they, 
Fashion-makers of the lovely 
Architectural mysteries 
Which we wonder at, to-day. 
Were they spirits of the craftsmen, 
Winged, gossamer and gray. 
Haunting their own bee-like palace 
For that sole enchanted day? 



[1*21 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



TOLEDO 

(Our Lady of the Faith) 

The Nave 

JLilKE a great forest centuries old 

After snow's henedicite. 
Beneath the emerging moon, it rears 

Its templed whiteness quietly. 
Pale columns splashed with mellow stain 

Of lichen and of moss, 
And leafless trails that fade away 

In outline of a Cross. 



A Friar 

A swift black galley, set, full sail. 
Ballooning in the wind, 
He swam the twilight silently' 
And pierced the sunset's luminous veil. 



[ 143 



TOLEDO 



Some Kneeling Women 

They crouch as still as death 

Before the Perpetual Light; 

Bunched inky creatures born of caves, 
Or human limpets paralyzed 
By the mind's night. 



The Archbishop 

Shaken, decayed, yet tall. 

Glittering he went; 
His endless robe dragged after him. 
Purple, magnificent; 
The children, whispering, half-afraid, following his foot- 
steps, ran; 
He seemed a terrible spent symbol, in likeness of a man. 



The Stained Glass Windows 

Red dawns above dark mountain-peaks. 

Clear sunsets far away, 
Noon-dapplings on a forest-floor. 

Scatter of star-dust, silver-gray; 
And there, long violet moonbeams lay. 
One window was a river-glade's 
Translucent gold and green; 

[144] 



TOLEDO 



He, Nicolas, who made it shine, — 
Spring danced through all his veins like wine. 
For he remembered, as he drew, 
An April evening's witchery. 
The Guadalquiver's beryl-hue 

And meadows broidered goldenly. 



[i«] 



ON TEE HIGHROAD 



BALLAD-MAKING IN SEVILLE 

{He touches his guitar and chants) 

W BlEN the green fire of the spring 

Sweeps the meadow of the rio. 
Then it is I love to sing: 

*' Maraquita, alma mia. 
Girl, full gladly would I die 

If one prophesied me clear 
At my dark mound you would kneel 

And shed a tear."" 



When the clouds like radiant smoke 

Toss up from the blue sierra. 
Then Remedios I invoke 

As I sow my plowed tierra: 
'My mother died of hunger. 

Begging from door to door ; 
I die because one little maid 

Will look at me no more^ 



[146] 



BALLAD-MAKING IN SEVILLE 



When Oracion-hour slants 

A long sheet of shining dust, 
I am he who loudly chants: 

*' Trini, slay me if you must, — 
There are three doors closed to none 

Be they thieves or emperors crowned ; 
The madhouse and the prison cell. 

The grave in Holy Ground.''^ 



When the twilight roads and rocks. 

Coin, Alhaurin el Torre, 
Stream with the home-coming flocks, — ■ 

Like a quiet-ending story; 
In the hills old Miguel 

'Mid the spiky asphodel 
Stooping for asparagus; 

And the goatherds with their goats 
And the donkeys, creeping, wind 
With their burdens various; 
And the children wreathe the myrtle in their hair. 
And a gentle sound of laughter like spring rain falls every- 
where, 
Weaving my yellow aloe sandals I also weave this prayer: 



147] 



BALLAD-MAKING IN SEVILLE 



Lola, listen to me, child! 

I have traveled to death's gate. 

Gazed on purgatory's pain. 
But no torment is so great 

As to love and love in vain.' 



[148] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



ON A TOWER IN CADIZ 



JN IGHT turns to blended shapes of violet 

The Spanish whiteness of the huddled town, 

With here and there a golden chasm slit 

Where in their gulch the street lamps flare, far down. 

As if a giant glowworm nestled, throbbing 

Betwixt white cliflFs and ancient ocean's sobbing. 



I climb the Atalaya's winding height, 
Leaving behind the stream of carnival. 
The masquers, flowers, serpentina-sellers 
And laughter where confetti burst and fall; 
Fantastic lighted strings that arch the street 
From balcony to balcony, lithe boys 
Who dart like fish, the medley of a fete 
With music in the hugeness of its noise. 



[1491 



ON A TOWER IN CADIZ 



But here, tranquillity of an upper realm, 

A few dark stairs have quenched the cries, the mirth; 

So those who lean out from a seraph-tower 

Remember not the recent roads of earth. 

The mingled turmoil of its fretfulness 

Not rippling once their deep forgetfulness. 



[150] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



A NAMELESS CITY 



Of all the old-world cities, some hill-set, 

Some circled by the sea's blue amulet. 

Out of them all one stands forth, clear and lonely, 

A nameless place glimpsed for an instant only. 
Swift vision of the rail's unwinding scroll. 
Revealed, concealed, etched against sunset light 

(The amethyst flaming of a Spanish night). 
It seemed miraculously limned by some great architect 
soul, 

A bubble of dome on an extravagant height. 

Roofs, palms and parapet massed to a molten whole 
That climbed and glittered upward to their goal 
Until the rushing train swept it from sight. 



[1511 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE STRANGER IN THE HOUSE 

(Andalusian) 

1 HEY used the little tender word 

That means a maid, beloved, unwed; 

They put a tinsel crown upon her 

And on each side her hair they spread, — 

As if she were a ballad-queen 

Decked for a feria on the green. 



They strewed pale meadow bloom upon her. 
Spring flowers that glimmer in the wheat; 

They opened doors and windows wide 
And there she lay for all the street 

To gaze upon, a white-wreathed girl 
With candles at her head and feet. 

She might have come from some far place, — 

Curious and awful shone her face. 



The barefoot children whispered round, 
'Look, a mozita lies there , crowned T' 



[1521 



TEE STRANGER IN THE HOUSE 



The old men paused beside the door 

And rubbed their eyes and dropped a prayer; 
The hooded women hurried by 

And crossed themselves and called her fair. 
A trembling child slipped in to stand 
A long time by her moveless hand. 
Smiling at her and touching it, — 

Perhaps to pierce her sleep, he deemed. 
So near she lay and yet how far ! 

And her fixed marble Silence seemed 
To pity us, who pitied her. 

As if she thought, 't was we who dreamed. 



**I am become more wise,'' It said, 
** Than you who wonder at the dead." 
Cabtama, Spain. 



[153] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



MOONRISE AT MALAGA 



r^ RILLED flat-faced heads frolicked beside our keel, 

Round thistly silvernesses shot and streamed 

And phosphorescent finger-tips played a tune 

Of silent music on the thousand ripples, 

An orchestra of subtler lights prelusive 

To the sudden moon that burst, a creamy flower. 

Spreading its monopetalous disk above 

The quiet rim of the magnificent night. 



[154 1 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE MUSIC AT SAINT SULPICE 



IT streams from nowhere. 

Fills the air; 
Booms like the thunder of a sea 
That washes up invisibly. 

Having no shore; 
As if the pillars and the gioom. 

The spaces vast, 
The height, the strength, the jeweled bloom. 

Made themselves audible at last. 



[155] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE CATHEDRAL AT CHARTRES 

Sweetheart, I shut my eyes and see 
The days of our first comradery, 
A great remembrance blessing me. 



At Chartres your face, uplifted, shines 
Beneath the church's noble lines 
And hoary mass like frosted pines. 



We seemed to touch within her nave 
The silent hands that were so brave 
To carve and love her architrave; 



The lacelike miracle of the choir 
Communed with us, each leaf and spire 
And stiff apostle with hair on fire. 



[156 



THE CATHEDRAL AT CHARTRES 



Strange forethought clouded once your eyes. 
Searching, outside, the golden skies 
For clearer truth than in us lies. 



Calm evening drenched the city wall, 
Steep jumbled roofs and towers tall. 
While the still stream reflecting all 



Flowed meditative through the whole, 
Like an idealizing soul. 



Or as the Virgin in her heart 
Pondered " these things," alone, apart. 



1157] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



PEDKO AT THE SPRING 

(Portuguese) 

W HEN I was an unchallenged stag, 
I drank at red moonrise. 

The mist hung ragged on my flanks 
And sparkled round my eyes. 



When I was Esau such fierce thirst 

Shriveled my tongue 
I slew a ram and quaflfed his blood 

And laughed — when I was young. 



Now I am Pedro of the Poor 

In Portugal, 
Of Traz-os-Montes where the pines 

Are purple armies tall. 



The road speeds white and far away: 
"Drink, brother, drink thee deep. 

[158] 



PEDRO AT TEE SPRING 



Above thy head the cloud sails high. 
Drink, ere thy next long sleep." 



They say that Jesu on the Cross 
Drank and went down to hell. 

I know not if I once was He, 
But this I know full well : 



' We all are thirsty travelers 

Bound for the Great Abode. 

Drink to the lees, spill not a drop. 
Have joy and hold the road!" 



[159 1 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



SEVEN GREEN POOLS AT CINTRA 



OEVEN green pools at Cintra 
In the pleasaunce of the king 
Where twilight sits and lingers 
Or flits on solemn wing. 
Seven small red flowers at Cintra 
Chanting a muted chime 
By the green pools of Cintra, 
(A toll for passion and crime. 
Or fairy furies' torches 
Burning since olden time?) 
Seven swinging flowers at Cintra, 
Red and remembering. 
They sway where twilight lingers. 
Slender and blood-stained fingers. 



Black swans that slide hke shadows, 
Red beaks that reach and glow, 
(Red-lipped as royal lovers. 
Ashes, ah, long ago!) 

[160] 



SEVEN GREEN POOLS AT CINTRA 



They slipped, black-clad and hooded. 
At midnight through the wooded 
Deeps of Almogageme. 



The tall Rock of the Spindle 
Cradled their bark, who knows, 
Quivering and waiting, waiting. 
For the end of that mad mating. 
(What was the end, who knows?) 
Now the moon begins to kindle, 
Like a climbing yellow rose 
By the sea-wall and the spindle. 
Watching above her garden. 
In violet waves enwhorled. 
The high-roads and the by-roads 
And the sorrows ©f the world. 



Seven green pools at Cintra 
In the pleasaunce of the king. 
Oh, lovers, I have heard your 
Challenge to happiness 
Thrilling the tropic verdure. 
Filling the twilight's hollow 
With silence luminous. 
It was too angel-daring, 
That dream of wind-free faring; 

[1611 



SEVEN GREEN POOLS AT C INTRA 



Perforce it ended — thus. 
Oh, lovers, in your caring. 
Epic, tempestuous. 
Ye were too angel-daring, 
Therefore ye ended — thus! 



Seven green pools at Cintra 
In the pleasaunce of the king. 
Where twilight sits and lingers 
Or flits on solemn wing. 
Twin swans as dark as shadows. 
Red beaks that seek and glow 
Like eager blood-stained fingers, 
Folded, ah, long ago. 
CiNTRA, Portugal. 



[1621 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



A MOORISH FOUNTAIN 



Within the f ronded garden 
Beside the Moorish spring. 
Jewels of emerald quiet. 
Luster of vines a-riot 
On every mildewed wall 
That ripple, running after 
But never murmuring. 
Save the dark inaudible laughter 
Of an earth-enchanted thing. 



Within the Moorish garden 
Slow water-sluices dropping, 
Poinsettia-sepals splashed 
Like heart's blood ebbing, stopping. 
Of some great wounded queen, 



[163] 



A' MOORISH FOUNTAIN 



Who in her life has quaffed her 
Full meed of love and laughter. 
And, wreathed with laurel green, 
Exotic, crimson-trailing, — 
Drinks to the God Unseen. 
CoiMBRA, Portugal. 



[164] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



BATALHA 

(The four sons of John the Good and Philippa of England were 
buried in Batalha, the Battle Abbey of Portugal, 1388) 

Between its lotus-stems 

The well-house drips and sings. 

The palm-tree sighs 
Of ships and Indian gems. 
Of templars, Gothic kings, 

A maid's dark eyes. 



Four golden lads you knelt 
Beside this dappled wall 

Within this long sunbeam; 

— Fingering sword and belt; 

— Hearing the great sea call; — 

Each with his dream. 



Oh, gallant effigied prince. 
Why wore you on your shield 
One word, Desirf 

[165 1 



BAT ALE A 



Time turned to bloom long since 
Dust of your battle-field, 

Red sowings of the spear. 



Still marble shape beside 
Your tragic brother there, 

Was love your sin? 
He a chained captive died; 
You in the joyous air 

Struck by your kin. 



Twined arches and a rose. 
The emblazoned spheres of him 

Called Fortunate. 
But all along there blows 
Through cloisters richly dim 

A Song of Fate. 



[166] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE CASTLE OF THE ORDER OF CHRIST 

(Ordem de Cavallaria de Nosse Senhor Jesus Christo, 1334. 
Thomar, Portugal) 

IT is too beautiful to be 

A ruined thing; 
It is more wonderful than fame. 

More wistful than the spring. 
(Hark, like the wind's wash in the pines, 

Or surge of distant seas, 
Yon white tree vastly nourishes 

Armies of singing bees.) 



The tangerines drop by the tower, 

A caged bird calls; 
The placid verger stops to tell 

Of battle on these walls. 
Ah, to have been in those old days 

The Master of the Knights, 
Building one's great imaginings 

On castled heights! 



1167 1 



TEE CASTLE OF TEE ORDER OF CERIST 



But the Ancient First Embroideress 

Silently works to fling 
Green robes around the crumbling doors 

That housed a king. 
It is too beautiful to be 

A ruined thing; 
It is more wonderful than fame. 

More wistful than the spring. 



[ 168 1 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE GARDEN OF TEARS 

(Quinta das Lagrimas, Coimbra. D. Pedro and Inez de Castro, 
1355) 

OO stem they lie, untremulous 

On their seraph-watched sarcophagus. 

These two who face each other thus. 



One scarce would think that, murmuring low. 
They walked once in the sunset glow 
And laughed and loved here, long ago. 



Just as we two this autumn day. 
The loquats tossing creamy spray. 
The steep town shimmering far away. 



Leaving quite still these garden closes, 
Shut by high walls and rioting roses, 



[169] 



THE GARDEN OF TEARS 



And pale daturas full of shine 
Like opal goblets drained of wine. 



What melancholy yet disturbs 

The calmness of the carved well-curbs. 

The rim of faint remembering herbs! 



It follows through the yew-tree shade 
And where the gold leaves float and fade 
It swims across the pool's green jade. 



And down each fragrant alley clings 
An odor of unhappy things. 



A little sob and under-song 

Of joy too brief and life too long. 



For in this garden centuries since 
Haunted the steps of that wild prince 



[170] 



TEE GARDEN OF TEARS 



Who wooed and loved her, in her bloom. 

The wistful figure on the tomb 

Above the marble- wrought Great Doom. 



Oft in the starry hushed night-hours 
They wove them wreaths of orange flowers 
Till dawn flamed from Se Velha's towers. 



Did she never cry and catch her breath, 
When strange poinsettias, red as death 



And shaped like drops of blood, splashed down 
And mingled with the fairy crown? 



Did never a Wraith of Her arise 

And quench for him the sparkling skies? 



— White, terrible, with unseeing eyes. 
Beyond the touch of love or lord ; 
Yet lifted, crowned in death, adored. 
At her still feet the king's great sword. 



[171] 



TEE GARDEN OF TEARS 



Thus carried to her wrought abode 

Up Alcohaca^s desolate road 

As bright with torches and with spears 

As night above the Garden of Tears ; 

Betwixt a kneeling populace 

With horror in each averted face I 



[172] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



A HILLSIDE OF WHITE HEATHER 

(Portuguese) 

A HILLSIDE of white heather 
Dripping with ocean mist, 

And miles of crumpled bracken 

Red-brown and autumn-kissed. 



Brown sheep that crowd and nibble. 
Following the mountain rills. 

And little piping shepherd-lads 

Brown as the wind-swept hills. 



Two stone mills high against the sea. 
Like Biblical watch towers, 

A walled sheep-fold, a herdsman's thatch 
Drifted with heather-flowers. 



The barefoot shepherd boys pipe loud 
Upon their oaten reeds; 

[ 173 ] 



A HILLSIDE OF WHITE HEATHER 



The ocean mist hangs on their clouts 
Like strings of precious beads. 



They care not for the dank sea-fog. 
The gathering white sea-gloom; 
They call their brown sheep down the crags 
And disappear, sheep, song, and rags, 
Swallowed in snowy bloom. 



[174 1 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE STATUES IN THE MUSEUM 



Statues of fauns and wrestlers, 
Marble-chill nereids, 
Centaurs, bacchante. 
Aloof you look and lonely. 
Stripped exiles from those sapphire coasts 
Of long ago. 



Ye carven gods and symbols 
Of occult things and awful, 
Serapis, Pallas, Peitho, 
Speechless you stand and humbled, 
Without one kneeling suppliant 
Or votive lamp aglow. 



Where are your fluted temples 
Of Psestum or Girgenti, 
Altar and wreathed oxen. 
Veiled whirling priestesses 

[175] 



THE STATUES IN THE MUSEUM 



And the vase-bearing worshipers 
Shouting Aioh? 



Instead, a rigid hallway 
Where, pagan, antique, wistful, 
You stand, stared at and jostled 
By mad new hurrying peoples 
With pinched and smileless visages 
Who do not know. 



[176] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE UNKNOWN ARCHITECT 

(Occasionally in southern Europe an architectural monument 
is ascribed to an " Unknown Master ") 

hjACH ardent vista, heavenly height 

Uplifted clear, — 
They are the man's thoughts thus expressed. 
The truths on which his soul would rest 

Expounded here. 
This cornice in quaint figures dressed 
Of elves and babes and beasts at jest 
Tells little sportive might-have-beens 

To childhood dear. 
He wrought, forgetting time and place. 
Sweet legends to adorn each space. 
Weaving the marble screen to lace 

Around the choir, 
As one who spins long memories. 

Gazing into the fire. 



Nor is he now unknown to us. 
This architect of dreams, 

[ 177 ]v 



TEE UNKNOWN ARCHITECT 



Who caught the wonder and outspread 
Each springing arch, lost overhead 
In vaulted beams; 

Laid paths down which the eye is led 
Through pillared shadows faintly shed 
To where, a disk of mystic red. 
The great rose-window gleams. 
We have the man, in stone expressed. 
His thoughts, the visions of his rest. 
And, as the rich light streams 
Down the dim aisle and glows aloft 
In dusk and color, it meseems 
The Master of the Workmen oft 
At eve, walked so, apart. 
Through forest lanes that dip into 
The sunset's heart. 



1178] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



WATERFALLS 



NyIVIPH of clear waterfalls. 

Singer of madrigals. 

Sprite of sheer mountain-walls. 

Pensive, precarious! 
Light-hearted troubadour. 

Lovely and various. 
All one long summer 
I wooed you and followed 
Li the forests you sang to. 
The mountains you hollowed. 



Oh, the streams of Westmoreland, 
That cloud-land, that hoar land! 

A waving ribbon 'twixt cliff and cliff, 

A silver stairway narrow. 
Or you danced away in a floating skiff 

Or you sped like a moonlit arrow. 



[179 



WATERFALLS 



Oh, the Lutschine and the Oberland, 
And the milk-white toss of your madcap hand. 
A thousand shapes flung down and shattered, 
A pool of clouds to a bubble scattered, 

A veil by the west wind cloven; 
And I saw you there, 
Sweet nymph of the air. 

With your blown braids sunset-woven. 



I wooed you in the Rhaetian hills 
When twilight hid your thousand rills. 

And the cloudlike mists upmounted. 
I loved you for your still white curves. 
And your bright silences uncounted, 



I loved you by the swift green Aar, 

You were so delicate, so far, 

Resolved to merest color. 

You were so delicate, so far. 

So motionless, above the Aar, 

Like one who listens to heavenly noise, 

So you, a shimmering Breath, a Poise. 



[1801 



WATERFALLS 



You ravished me in Italy, too. 

Child of the Apennines; 
Like a white slender campanile 

You gleamed 'mid steeps of vines. 
Or in their solemn gardens you hummed 

More subtly than the bees. 
Where cadence of your vapory ways 

Threaded the cypress trees; 
And in wild Anio*s waterfall. 
Your white step soared divinely tall. 

And sibylline and lyrical. 



But most I loved you as a Voice; 

In one green Alpine valley; 
A dancing Voice that twinkled, flew. 

Like slim feet of an elfin ballet. 
An undiscoverable Voice, 

Elusive, immaterial; 
A moon-white, teasing ecstasy, 

A ripple of calling melody, 

Remote, aerial. 



[1811 



ON TEE HIGHROAD 



MONT BLANC 

(Seen from the Pays de Vaud) 

iVllDWAY 'twixt earth and upper air. 
Miraculously hovering there. 
The mystic mountain springs to view. 
Shines, bubble-like, against clear blue, 
A bodiless Shape, a heavenly Hue, 
A thing of light and shadow made. 
Quick at a breath to fly or fade — 
Like frosty penciling of the rime 
On window-glass in winter-time. 
A mystery of sleeping show 
Touched with an everlasting glow 
From some great Face we do not know. 



[182 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



ON THE ROOF OF THE MILAN CATHEDRAL 



A DRAGON heaves a sullen yawn, 
A cherub chants it for the dawn; 
An impious griflSn thrusts his claw 
Above the ark that cherubs draw. 
Each, frozen to his fantastic mood, 
Glowers or beams beatitude. 
Fixed in chaotic brotherhood 
As some old sculptor's brain deemed good. 



Angel and monster, side by side, 
Placed here these centuries to abide. 
Have you learned tolerance out of pride? 
\Miat language speak you with each other. 
Seraph and wolf-hound, foe or brother. 
At midnight ere the first gleam shows 
On yon far-fixed perpetual snows. 
And you look face to face alone, 
A silent congregation of stone? 



[183] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE BAKER'S BOY 

(Pays de Gex) 

1 HEY say it is a mountain peak 
In far-off French Savoy 

That just before a storm, appears 
Wondrous as robes of joy. 



I do not know if this is true. 
* It floats there sunlight-kissed 
Like a foam-island on the blue, 
A swan's breast in the mist. 



Above the vineyards and the grain. 
The dim hill-line of France, 

The blotted shape of moving rain. 
The roof where storm-winds dance. 



Beyond, above, you see it now.? 
Whipped up of frosty breath, 



[184 1 



THE BAKER'S BOY 



Of roses on a dreaming brow, 
Of dawns as white as death. 



Like some miraculous great cake, 

I always think it is, 
That the Queen Virgin loves to make, 

For in Heaven's House it is, 
And seven archangels stand and bake 
To be God's lighted birthday cake. 



[185] 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



A MEMORIAL TABLET 

(0 Agathocles, fare thee well) 

JNaKED and brave thou goest 
Without one glance behind! 
Hast thou no fear, Agathocles, 
Or backward grief of mind? 



The dreamy dog beside thee 
Presses against thy knee; 
He, too, O sweet Agathocles, 
Is deaf and visioned like thee. 



Thou art so lithe and lovely 
And yet thou art not ours. 
What Delphic word compels thee 
Of kings or topless towers .^^ 



That little blowing mantle 
Thou losest from thine arm. 

[186 1 



A MEMORIAL TABLET 



No shoon nor staff, Agathocles, 
Nor sword, to fend from harm! 



Thou hast the changed impersonal 
Awed brow of mystery; 
Yesterday thou wast burning, 
Mad boy, for Glaucoe. 



Lydia thy mother calls thee; 
Mine eyes with tears are dim. 
Turn once, look once, Agathocles! 
{The gods have blinded him.) 



Come back, Agathocles, the night 
Brings thee what place of rest? 
Wine-sweet are Glaucoe's kisses, 
Flower-soft her budding breast. 



He seems to hearken, Glaucoe, 
He seems to listen and smile ; 
Nay, Philis, but a god-song 
He follows this many a mile. 



[187] 



A MEMORIAL TABLET 



Come back, come back, Agathocles ! 
(He scents the asphodel. 
Unearthly swift he runneth.) 
Agathocles, farewell! 
Metropolitan Museum, New York. 



[ 188 



ON TEE HIGHROAD 



A ROMAN GARDEN 



All night above that garden the rose-flushed moon will 

sail 
Making the darkness deeper where hides the nightingale. 
Below the Sabine mountain 
The tossed and slender fountain 

Will curve, a lily pale; 
And where the plumed pine soars tallest, 
'T is there, O nightingale, thou callest; 
Where the loud water leaps the highest. 
'T is there, O nightingale, thou criest; 
In the dripping luscious dark. 

Hark, oh, hark! 
Wonderful, delirious. 
Soul of joy mysterious. 



A garden full of fragrances. 
Of pauses and of cadences. 
Whence come they all? 



[189] 



A ROMAN GARDEN 



Of cypresses and ilex-trees, 

Plumes and dark candles like to these 

Were long ago Persephone's. 



All night within that garden 

The glimmering gods of stone, 
The satyrs and the naiads 

Will laugh to be alone, 
In starless courts of shadows 

By silence overgrown. 
Save for the nightingale's 

Wild lyric thither blown. 



By pools and dusky closes 

Dim shapes will move about. 
Twirled wands and masks and faces. 
Dancers and wreaths of roses. 

The moonlight's trick, no doubt. 
A naked nymph upon the stair, 
A sculptured vine that clasps the air, — 
And then one Bacchic bird somewhere 

Will pour his passion out. 
All night above that garden the rose-flushed moon will sail 
Making the darkness deeper where hides ^he nightingale. 



[190] 



A ROMAN GARDEN 



Down yonder velvet alley 

Floats Daphne like a feather, 
A finger bidding silence. 

The dark and she together. 
Look, where the secret fount is misting. 
Apollo, thou shalt have thy try sting; 
For where a ruined sphinx lay smiling 
The wood-girl waits thee, white, beguiling. 
All night above that garden the rose-flushed moon will sail 
Making the darkness deeper where hides the nightingale. 



tmi 



ON THE HIGHROAD 



THE RIDE HOME 

W E rode around the shoulder of a hill 
Hunted by twilight, hoping nought, until 



I cannot tell how gray our silence was; 

The huge hills weighed on us, no other cause. 



Except it be the wastes of Alhaurin la Torre, 

Those lean folk and their eyes, a wild, an untold story; 



We rode our horses slowly, without speech. 
Doubting the way, half -fearful, each for each. 



Until — we heard no sound but twilight moans 
Of beast or owl, dim things that house in stones. 



[192] 



TEE RIDE HOME 



As still we pushed across the shadowed fells 
And the hollow pass kept curving like a shell's 



Coil, widening up and outward, lo, the land 
Suddenly flowed beyond us like an opened hand. 



Twilight no more, the mountains riven sheer. 
We swung into a radiant other sphere, 



Filled to the brim with sunset such as strides 

Along storm-gilded peaks or foams up with the tides; 



The unendurable color of cloud-edges. 

The heart of gems, dawn-fire along sea-ledges. 



Aye, here the solid rocks were liquid flame. 
The whole sky soared, a bird for God to tame; 



The vines in all the vineyards were shot through. 
And pale green sparks the leaf-tips flashed and flew. 



[193] 



TEE RIDE HOME 



Pink, purple, lilac, burnt rose, clearest gold. 
From mule-trail to Junquera's faintest fold. 



For atmosphere, as by love's touch of grace. 
Makes paradise blossom from^the commonplace. 



Inheritors of an undreamed element. 
Transfigured, glowing, near together, we went, 
Ourselves grown mystic and magnificent. 



fl94] 



TEE IVORY GATE 



THE IVORY GATE 



THE SHADOW OF THE HELMET 

(Michelangelo's il pensieroso) 

Within that never-Ufted shadow 
Look out the somber eyeSy 

As in deep search eternally 
To he made vrise. 



Within that never-lifted shadow 
What long processions pass, 

God's face upon the waters 
And years like grass I 



Remoteness of the sunset 
Where one bird flies; 

Loneliness of love's fellowship; 
A swan's last cries. 



[197] 



THE SHADOW OF THE HELMET 



Ten thousand screaming soldiers; 

A hungry crowd agape; 
A pale recu*mbent effigy 

With tassels on the cap. 



A torch, a maniac emperor; 

Moonlight, a grave; 
A white sky-piercing mountain; 

A hunted slave. 



A blind trail in a forest; 

A martyr's hair aflame; 
A dance, a dream, a shadow. 

And lust and shame. 



Dynasties, stars and darkness; 

The stirring in the womb; 
Red war, a vulture sitting; 

A tree in bloom. 



A jeweled cup of poison; 

A man-child at the breast; 
Drowned cities; grinning idols, 

White kisses of the pest. 

[198] 



TEE SHADOW OF TEE EELMET 



Tears and desires and ashes; 

A sighing breath; 
The sadness of possession; 

A wanton's death. 



Captains of ships and swinging corpses; 

Far undiscovered lands; 
Dooms of dead kings, clear laughter; 

A woman's hands. 



Within that never-lifted shadow 
The eternal question lies, 

Unknowable, unanswerable. 
Before the somber eyes. 



[199] 



TEE IVORY GATE 



YOUTH 



1 AM the unquiet sister with the old wild beautiful eyes. 

Who went forth from my home to seek; 

I am the immortal child who yearned for the moon and the 

star-sown skies; 
I am the dreaming girl who burned 
For the touch of a god on her cheek. 



I am the unquiet sister with the young ancient beautiful 

eyes 
Whose feet with morning were shod. 
I have traveled the long long road where the caravan smoke 

and the golden dust up-flies, 
I am the dreaming girl who awoke 
And discovered a vanishing god. 



I am the unquiet sister with the gray roving beautiful eyes 

Who plucked at the world in its bloom. 

Ah, to be as I was at first, transparent, eager, unwise! 

[200 1 



YOUTH 



For the clear little brook I thirst 

Where I drank when the dawn was young 

And the door of my girlhood's room. 



I am the unquiet sister with the old wild beantiful eyes. 

I have seen so many things — 

Hope detained in a sightless tower and graves for ques- 
tionings, 

Love that endured for an hour and the eyes of wounded 
things. 

I would like to go back once more, creep back, dark-foot in 
the rain. 

And timidly knock at the door I left. I can never go back 
again. 



[201] 



TEE IVORY GATE 



THE SON OF HIS FATHER 

(The Steel-Foundry) 

J_JAB,K, ancient, beautiful is my mother. 
I lay unquickened in her flesh 
Till the White God my terrible father 
Plucked me into life's burning mesh. 



white-hot father whose breath begot me, 

1 am stiller than the rigid North; 
Earth-Mother whose long brooding wrought me, 
Lo, what volcanoes urge me forth! 



Through crucible and shimmer of furnace, 
(The pit, the blast, the blows that stun. 
The traveling crane's eternal hunger. 
He, brainless fierce automaton.) 
Men beat me to their lurid uses 
Forge me, in shops of nether-sun. 



[202] 



THE SON OF HIS FATHER 



Now, now, they lash me forth to conquer. 
To storm the blue-black screaming miles; 
To swing aloft on mast-high girders, 
To leap the towers of deep dej&les. 



To lift the thundering stress of bridges 
With gossamer web of cantilever; 
To scatter battle beneath the sea, 
To plunder, shatter and dissever. 



Men have no mind to wait and harken. 
Therefore they are not gods, not they; 
They smoke and surge, they throttle, darken, 
They wring their hands and pray. 



They whirl me from the unthinking sheath, 
I, that old Sword without a soul. 
For them I plant the dragon's teeth: 
What God shall make the wounded whole? 



[203] 



THE IVORY GATE 



YEARNING 



1 HERE never was a port of earth 
So lured me as the golden West 
Nor any man of all the earth 
Could draw me like the sea's wild breast; 



Not any slumber warm abed 
Consoles me for the lunar sweep 
Of silver loveliness I lose 
When a gnome caverned and asleep. 



Nor any fireside's happy ring 
Of smiles and bright familiar faces 
Bears such a message as the arcs 
Of superterrene soundless places. 



To walk alert, quick with the joy 
Of human loves and vivid sense, - 

[204] 



YEARNING 



But oh, some cloud-shape calls my soul; 
A leaf's caducous eloquence; — 



Or just at evening that lone star's 
Beacon on God's vast eminence, 
Whirling his far seonologe 
Of fixed and sad magnificence. 



[205] 



THE IVORY GATE 



INFINITY 



HiARTH'S pangs and pains, they kiss or stab 

A puny dwindling exaltation. 

But, oh, the spheral agony! 

To listen at night and understand 

The small steps of eternity! 

To smile and see 

At one's doom-hour, maybe. 

The star-sown Road 

Of a trans-spectral unity 

Curving across men's sleeping hands 

Its wakeful arched illumination. 

To capture once 

The speechless language. 

The haunting flash 

Of death's hushed fulmination!j 

Once to have heard, once to have heard 

The first seed's arrogation — 



[206] 



INFINITY 



The ultimate Challenge, 

The flying Word, 

And then to follow, follow 

Beyond the farthest god's flame-darkened habitation. 



[207] 



TEE IVORY GATE 



VESPERS 

1 AM become a part of beauty. 

Beauty a part of me. 
The same faint soul that crossed this door 

Never again to be; 
If so I grow with earth's brief breath. 

With silence and man's melody. 
What stature may they not attain 

Who walk in Immortality? 



[208 1 



TEE IVORY GATE 



THE PATH WE NEVER TOOK 

Vv HEN tender spring returns in waves her misty green to 
fling 

I think of one who used to love 
The earthly spring. 



One day I found a sweet new path through thickets by a 
brook, — 

Clematis vines, wild apple-trees. 
And then, our nook. 



Her eyes shone blue with great delight — wood-ways she 
loved to know : 

"Let's take that little path," she cried, 
"Next time we go." 



[209] 



THE PATH WE NEVER TOOK 



But now — where are her eager feet, her child-hke eyes 
that shone? 

And I — have not the heart at all 
To go alone. 
Pabis, Fbance, 1911. 



. [ 210 ] 



THE IVORY GATE 



INDIA 

Who are we? Should one live ten thousand years 

He would not glimpse his face. 
(Brother, lie still and dream !) 
Dead priest and prophet, hither, answer us. 

Where flies the soul in space .^^ 



Whose hand inscribed us as his cipher code 

Or are we nothingness? 
(Brother, lie still and dream!) 
Not one of us has met his own eyes' gaze. 

The soul's gaze, less. 



What is the assuagement of our infinite thirst. 
For life 's a throat that drinks; 

(Brother, lie still and dream!) 

Where shall we ease us? Ask the Swastika, 
The Androsphinx. 



[211] 



INDIA 



What shall we worship? All is vulnerable; 

Men worshiped once the spheres. 
(Brother, lie still and dream!) 
But now — stars crumble in our hands, things pulverable ! 

Discover God and godhead disappears. 



Space is — illusion; time — a dial-shadow; 

Substance — a pinch of dust. 
(Brother, lie still and dream !) 
One attribute is irreducible. 

In Nothingness we trust. 



Dominion, happiness? Bubbles that blow. 

Glory? A clod. 
(Brother, lie still and dream!) 
Beyond the visible lies the Invisible, 

Beyond that. Nothing, God 1 



{212] 



THE IVORY GATE 



NAY, DO NOT HOARD YOUR DREAM 

JNaY, do not hoard your dream, poor child. 

That came to bless. 
The beautiful, impossible. 
The Once- Was Happiness. 



Nay, do not sit for hours in the dark, 

Crying for that brief glory, 
Even if you wore it once upon your breast, 

Let the dream go, poor child, and take your rest. 



Forget the once-was, not-to-be-again 

Beloved rapture; 
What though you thought such joy would never wane. 

The star once fallen, no mortal may recapture. 



[213] 



NAY, DO NOT HOARD YOUR DREAM 



So let it go, and smile, poor child, 

Smile through your tears; 
Build humbler hopes for how else shall you live 

All the long years? 



[214] 



TEE IVORY GATE 



THE SWIMMER 



IjAST night all night I swam a direful race. 
Bosoming all night long the long sea-surges. 
Borne by the buoyant billows as they rode. 
Rising and falling like a wind-tossed feather. 
Yet straining with invincible endeavor 
Upward against the downward-pulling sea. 
And outward for the bourne that no man knows 
Against the dreadful drag of heavy shores 
Weighting the body of clay back to its own. 
There was no ship, no sail, no foam-washed isle, 
No fringing reef nor shoulder of wave-washed rock 
But only I, my forehead and my face 
The center of the vast vague of the sea, 
A mote, the smallest in the eye of heaven. 
Battling against the infinite of space. 
Thrusting it backward, mounting to the crest. 
Forward forever, ever stationary. 



[215] 



TEE SWIMMER 



The center of the vast vague of the sea, 
Derelict of a naked sphere wherefrom 
Gray soldiers of an imminent dawn of Fear 
Stamp out the stars and slay the motherly moon. 



[2161 



THE IVORY GATE 



INSPIRATION 



An old-time habit drove me and 

I entered in. 
The people sat, arrayed, courageous, pale 
As masks, while he, against the pulpit-rail 
Learnedly leaning, roared of human sin 
Full lustily, albeit his look was thin. 



After a while his face no more I watched; 

I saw at most 
Rapt pious heads and windows dimly bright. 
Like banks of galley-oarsmen 'gainst the hght. 
And soon there murmured, not the worshiping host, 
But far off rhythm and hurl of wave on coast. 



I stood beneath the shadow of a cliff, 

A kestrel-hunter, agape, 
A cliff of dreams by gusts of strange thoughts vexed, 
Yet somehow sprung from prayer and psalm and text. 

[217] 



INSPIRATION 



High on the brink a great new Thought took shape. 
Gleamed, challenged me, wide-winged for escape. 



They teach that rhythm is the birth of thought. 

That God is thought alone; 
What would the preacher say if he had guessed 
The far flight 'twixt my lastly and his text. 
Or did their mystic borders touch his own. 
The outlands whence my Visitant had flown? 



[218 1 



TEE IVORY GATE 



THE STAR 

IjETWEEN the leaves of elecampane, 

Beside the pasture bar, 

I ghmpsed the Evening Star. 

I could have plucked it 'twixt two stalks 

Of feathery weed. 

Palpable as a globe of burning thistle-seed. 



Upward I cHmbed; 
Then it receded motionless, 
No longer by the hilltop bar. 
But proud and far 

On the blue threshold of another world. 
Flashing the while 

From that vast headland where it whirled 
A still and planetary smile. 
Unadilla Forks. 



[219] 



TEE IVORY GATE 



A DREAM IN SICKNESS 

All night, sweetheart, I fled 

From mortal harm. 
Nay^ dear love, hut you slept 

Upon my arm. 



All night Things followed me 

And, moaning low. 
How terribly I ran 

You cannot know. 



The torchless road, the swords. 

The shrouded crew! 
Nay, love, from dark till dawn 

I guarded you. 



Look that I speak the truth! 
This tortured breast, 

[220] 



A DREAM IN SICKNESS 



Dear love, you lay so still 
In death-like rest. 



Was it then rest to me 

All night to fleet. 
With Horror hard upon me, 

The road to beat? 



Was it a dream, a dream, 
My gasping breath, 

And that I was a slave, 
Hounded to death? 



Dear love, remember not. 
Those tears you wept. 

It was my name you cried 
Even as you slept. 



Sweetheart, ah, this at least 

I mind me well. 
The glowing altar-tree 

By which I fell, 



[2211 



A DREAM IN SICKNESS 



A hunted slave, crying 

On Sanctuary, — 
Then your face shone, my Sweet, 

Instead of Mary. 
Presbyterian Hospital, New York. 



[2221 



TEE IVORY GATE 



THE INNOCENT 

Ses pieds sont id, ses yeux la-has 
(Peasant saying concerning idiots) 

1 HE other children have their toys, 
Ronsart and Rose Mitaine : 
He has a hoe and box of seeds. 
She has three ribands and some beads. 
And worsteds in a colored skein. 
Now, what have you?" says Rose Mitaine, 
Have you a hoop and such a knife?" 
Cries Ronsart. Never in my life. 
'Then what have you?" says Rose Mitaine. 



But when I tell them what I have 

Tittering they turn away. 

I have a rivulet green as glass, 

White-ruffled like a dancing lass 

Oh, you should see it flash and pass. 

I wash my little naked feet 

And learn the song the waves repeat. 



[223] 



THE INNOCENT 



I count the minnows one by one, 
The water-beetles run and run. 
And when I say my prayers apart 
The Httle brook flows through my heart. 
("That cannot be," says P'tit Ronsart.) 



I have three poplar-trees that stand 
Like three great kings across the land. 
Like three kings great and gray. 
(Rose Mitaine laughs and turas away.) 
I have a star that is all mine. 
Large as a pasque-flower on a vine. 
It sets behind the purple Dole, 
As clear and sad as my own soul. 
It smiles at me, then drops away. 
("La, is that all.^" tittering they say.) 



So, when the children nudge and say, 
"Why do you stare so far away.'*'* 

I think a while and then reply: , 
"There is a wonder in the sky. 

That I have seen and only I." 

The other children shake their heads, 

Ronsart and Rose Mitaine. 

Then say I am an Innocent 



[224] 



THE INNOCENT 



Because I see too plain. 

" Your feet are here," they laugh and say, 
**And yet your eyes are far away." 
I know it, Rose Mitaine. 
DivoNNE, France. 



[225] 



THE IVORY GATE 



THE TREMBLING FLOWER 

XlUSH, my beloved, let us lie and wait 
With closed eyes in the awful hands of Fate, 
For She who snatched us up in clouds and fire, 
She is our mistress, sole and passionate. 



What though She whirled us from unthinking sleep. 
Yet had the elements commingled deep 
With all the sowings of ten thousand years 
The trembling flower of this joy to reap. 



The accidents of life were tossed to this. 
Shuddering and kindling to that doomful kiss 
When our two spirits burst to one clear point 
Of flaming inextinguishable bliss. 



. [ 226 1 



THE IVORY GATE 



THE FOOL SPAKE 



Aye, give one guess! 
It is more soft than death's last sigh, 
It soars on Gabriel's wing more high 

Than happiness. 



The goat-boy heard, 
Rejoiced and walked wind-shod; 
The lily on the graveyard sod. 

The voyaging bird. 



Have learned it, too. 
'T is older than the morning stars; 
The great king fronted many wars 

Nor heard, nor knew. 



[227] 



THE FOOL SPAKE 



It doth outweigh all treasure; 
The footprint where a doe might stand. 
The hollow of the smallest hand 

Contain its measure. 



A floating leaf, 
A smile's light, an escaping dream. 
Are not so quick to fade, to gleam, 

So frail and brief. 



"It is a bubble, 
A charmed sword, a rune, an amulet. 
For they who wear it, like the gods, forget 

Darkness and trouble." 



'Give it to me," the young prince stormed* 
'For battle where thick dust is whirled; 
With flag and scutcheon shall it march 
And win the world." 



'Nay, were it mine," a lady cried, 
'Hid were the treasure. 'T would be girt 
Close, close against this throbbing breast 
To heal my hurt." 

[ 228 ] ^ 



THE FOOL SPAKE 



"Fools," quoth the fool, "if it were ours. 
The blue sea would engulf these towers; 
The queen, a barefoot maid would sing; — 
Wars — be dim tales, and I — the King!" 
Cartama, Spain. 



[229] 



THE IVORY GATE 



THE VISITOR 



i^HE came a-knocking at my door, 

I opened unto her; 
She had the lovely asking eyes 

A man's dead heart to stir. 
She had no name or parentage. 

In tatters she was clad; 
She was the child of sun and rain 

And Spring that makes us glad. 



Her tongue was strange and yet full well 

I understood her speech; 
It wove a vision wonderful 

That hour within my reach. 
I shut my hands and sternly spoke; 
t And yet I was afraid. 
Knowing that I had wanted her. 

Had called and she obeyed. 



[230] 



THE VISITOR 



She smiled and sang: "Come forth with me 

And you shall walk a king, 
Wear gold that makes the blood leap high. 

Teaches the lips to sing." 
She went in rags from door to door. 

Begging, yet spoke the truth 
I shook before her littleness. 

Her beauty and her youth. 



I am a great man on the Street 

Towns rule I with my brain; 
But when she smiled and looked at me 

I dared not lie again. 
Almost I took her to my arms 

And left my rich abode, — 
Then, I remembered who I was 

And sent her on her road. 



Yet my heart broke to have her go. 

Watching her climb the hill 
I held my hands shut tight and cursed, — 

I see her figure still, — 



[231] 



TEE VISITOR 



For as she stood against a cloud 
And, like a breath, was gone. 

She seemed an angel with drawn sword 
In likeness of the Dawn. 
Cabtama, Spain. 



[2S2] 



TEE IVORY GATE 



THE LIGHTED LAIVIP 



It was so great a light you held. 
And yet you did not know. 

I caught my breath for fear of it. 
You swung it to and fro. 



If you had lost it, all the world 
Could not have given it back. 

You went unconscious as a rose. 
With powers that emperors lack. 



A little laugh might blow it out; 

The sacred oil might spill; 
A step might shatter, yet you looked 

With eyes as calm and still 



233 1 



THE LIGHTED LAMP 



As one who had no secret gold, 

No treasure under key. 
Though what was yours would be, if lost. 

Lost irredeemably. 
And I, who read this in your face. 

Prayed God it might not be. 



[£34] 



TEE IVORY GATE 



KINSHIP 



1 HAVE a sister who last year 

Went like a breath of air, 
Whom still it seemed that we should find 

Some day, somewhere. 



Till, through long days and grievous nights 
Slow winter changed to spring 

While her great silence grew to be 
A fixed accustomed thing. 



Then gradually the void was filled 

By music in the heart 
As of a viewless vast procession 

In which one played one's part. 



[235 1 



KINSHIP 



Before she went one did not dream 

The nearness of a star 
Nor how a footstep's space might reach 

inimitably far. 



Rarely, at twilight or at dawn 
There comes a clearer sense 

Of worlds beyond that guard our own. 
Of angels' immanence. 



I do not know if this be true 
That she comes back to me; 

I only know that once on earth 
I clasped an Immortality. 
Paris, 1911. 



[2361 



THE IVORY GATE 



THE THINGS THAT ENDURE 



What wish you, immortality? 
Then of frail visions become the wooer. 
Stone cities melt like mist away 
But footsteps in the sand — endure. 



Assyria was mowed down like grass. 
Queen Ptah a thousand slaves would give 
To buy her body from the tomb. 
Yet one slave's laugh — shall live. 



Words sown upon the air float forth 

Immortal voyagers. 
The solid mountain shall dissolve 

But not that look of Hers. 



237] 



THE IVORY GATE 



TO TIME THE MEDIATOR 



JN OT as a hoary ancient do I see thee 
With reverend step and wary, 
But as a winged Whiteness, stilly smiling. 
Half seraph and half fairy. 



Bending to molten fragile crucibles: — 
'Slow, slow, — take thought! 
For beauty is the only changeless vessel 
Where souls are wrought." 



Whispering 'twixt lifted hands and blind fierce eyes, 
"I am Next Year! 
You have already forgiven and forgot 
These wounds that sear." 



[238] 



TO TIME TEE MEDIATOR 



Singing to loneliness who stares at night 
Counting the dull struck hours: 
**I am sweet Noon-Hour in the school-house yard. 
Stringing the yellow flowers.'* 



Crying to doomed and broken lovers: " Yes ; 
Worlds moan and drown 
In these your tears. I am Forgetfulness, 
Tricked like a clown." 



Tinkling in drained and pitiful glasses: "Thus 
Is born a nobler thirst: 

The unbrewed, the undreamed-of draught shall be 
Diviner than the first." 



Not as an ancient harvester do I see thee 
Of cindering loves and hates, 
But as a winged Whiteness, looming softly. 
Who smiles and meditates. 



[239] 



TEE IVORY GATE 



MOTHERHOOD 

Sweetness of lIps that mine have kissed 

I give to thee; 
Wonder and ardor of a savage girl 

Beneath a golden tree; 
I give thee starry sorrows, life's rare wine. 

And Psestum and Thermopylae. 



I give thee that white lily sown of sin 

By some called penitence; 
Ballads and battles, ships that dare discover 

And cleave the dark immense; 
Love of the fragile grace of flying things, 

A word's magnificence. 



Heart-break of music and the sword-stained glory 

Of lost Granada, 
The chant of laborers and the penciled faery 

Snows of the high Nevada; 

[240] 



MOTHERHOOD 



Bronze bells of temples and the mystery-raining 
Silence of Buddha. 



The little swelling throats of singing birds 
When vines bend with their passion; 

Aerial sculpture of unconquered clouds. 
The wind's wild fashion; 

And all forgotten tombs where genius dwells. 
Nation by nation. 



The shimmer of poplars by still streams of France; 

All rapture stored 
In the blue shadow of a jacinth bank; 
Ruins of towers, an army's glittering rank; 

Pale effigies of lady and of lord; 
Cathedral dusks; — all these shalt thou inherit 

For these have I adored. 



When in a Sabine garden once I drank 

The nightingale's delirium 
I knew not that my soul snatched song and color 

To weave thy shoon of beauty Tyrian; 
*'Yea, Nile and Hathor's breasts have rocked this child," 

Sang Miriam. 



[241] 



OTHER WORLDS 



OTHER WORLDS 



CHRISTMAS EVE 

1 FEAR ye, Furies, let me sternly lie, a great king who has 

died. 
Pale and magnificent, to overawe in purple pride. 



Nay^ Thing, that is not thou, it neither knows nor feels. 
Run, naked Thing, into the night, our hounds upon thy 



Run, nameless Thing, unendingly, vrith neither goal nor track. 
Run, shuddering like a tyrant's prey, our snakes across thy 
back. 



Who is he that goeth by like a spark blown from a fire? 
Hush, trouble us not with questions. Thing, jor our task is 
dire. 



[245] 



CHRISTMAS EVE 



What is that glow like a misty moon that streams through 
the dreadful night? 

We are thy Crimes and answer thee not. Thou art con- 
quered in the fight. 



Ah, hither it flies and thither it flies, like a seed in the 

storm's convoy. 
Yet it knows its path. Erynes, I pray, to follow this globe 

of joy! 



Nor a wind-blown seed nor aflame, Thing, but a voyaging 

unborn soul. 
Frail as a breath on glass, but ah, how it buffets the storm, to 

its goal I 



Oh, cruel Erynes, my bodied Sins, ye may strangle my 

speech if ye can. 
But I'll have my say on my passing-day with this soul of 

an unborn man. 



Little one, darling one, bird of the border, 

Waif of some realm divine, 
Whither and why, so valiant and sweet? 

Didst thou want for bread or for wine? 

[246] 



CHRISTMAS EVE 



Who art thou, creature, naked and gray. 
With blood on thy outstretched hands ? 

The End of an old, old wicked man 
Who was king over many lands. 



Now fear to go further, brave little flame. 

Transparence lovely as dew. 
For temptations are many and tears are scorching 

And happiness comes to few. 



Thou soul of an old, old wicked man. 
Beating upward, dragged to hell, 

Lo, the soul of Christ must he horn as a babe. 
Peace unto thee. Farewell. 



I know not the language the little one spake yet there 

flowed from his heart to my own 
The beam of a terrible shining road, a road I must mount 

alone. 



I, the soul of an old, old wicked man in whose eyes a babe 

has smiled. 
Erinyes, Erinyes, Erinyes, avaunt! I am saved by the 

unborn child. 

[247] 



OTHER WORLDS 



A PRINCE IN VETULONIA 

W HAT was it like to be a prince 

Eras ago in Vetulonia, 
Long, long before those naked wanderers came. 

Stern ancestors of Caesar and Antonia? 
Yea, long before the eagle and his might. 
Purple of senate, shouted plebiscite; 

Long, long before, at rugged Volaterrae, 
Before the insolent obliteration 
Of many a bannered and processioned nation. 
Themselves to fall as falls the crimson berry. 

Races of leaves at sunken Volaterrae. 



Gray cycles since, a warrior lucumo. 

You tossed the mead down from your black amphora: 
To-day your granite hands yet grasp the bowl 

Embossed with symbols of Etruscan flora. 
Neighbors of yours, those dim Volumnii, 
Couchant upon their grim sarcophagi 

Hewn desolate ages since at Volaterrae, 

[248] 



A PRINCE IN VETULONIA 



Forever on the Iid*s unopened brink 
They seize the undrunk cup and think and think 
How once they drank the wine-cup and made merry 
Eras ago at ruined Volaterrae. 



What was it like to battle and to sing. 

To feast and love in Vetulonia, 
Only to crumble into under-soil 

For porphyry baths of some effete Antonia? 
Even then as now the nightingale sang low. 
The cyclamen shook at Pratovecchio, 
The wild hawk swooped upon his breathless quarry, 

And you to Larthia at Volaterrae, 
Now the twin birds of stone austerely meet 
And watch below your sculptured moveless feet. 
How swift they once were, prince, and how unweary 

In that fierce wooing-time at Volaterrae! 



[249] 



OTHER WORLDS 



THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST 



1 HE Lombard night like some swarth water-lily 
Unfolds its largeness to the darks above. 
Its lucid petals float out languidly 
Dipped in dark silences and secrecy 
Soft as the breast of love. 



/ am coming y Violante, from the sobbing battle-field 

Where my face upturned glistens^ dripping casque and broken 

shield. 
Was the moon-rise white on Como? It was blood-red when 

I reeled 
With my arms flung crosswise, Christ-like^ Violante, when 

I 



The strange moon rising trembles in the wave. 
The semblance of a cross on Lecco's sheet, 



[250] 



THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST 



A giant cross even to the blotted rim 
Of firefly-faint Mandello, slumbering dim 
At Campione's feet. 



/ am coming, Violante, watch and listen yet awhile, 
I am leaving the dark terror of the gasping heaped defile. 
Till the smoky dawn discovers the white message of my smile. 
my comrades, do you wonder that the dead wear such a smile ? 



The moon's adventuring sail puts out from port 
Above Palagia's violet-soaring peak. 
What gallant soul goes questing out with her 
Unto the lovely land of Days-That-Were 
And love's dear arms to seek? 



Vaguely swings the Adriatic. Now the domes of Venice shine^ 

And I see the great Salute as a bubble of golden wine. 

Now the flickering threads of rivers through the rugged 

Apennine, 
And the peaks of Monte Rosa like a lesser heaven shine. 



A sword of stars crowns Crocione's height; 
The glitter of an archangelic sweep 



[251 J 



TEE DEAD TRAVEL FAST 



Above the white-towered towns that cluster high 
(While battle blackens far off and stains the sky). 
Moon-washed and fast asleep. 



Hark, they call m^, Violante, all the unhappy lonely dead. 
In their graves they rise to hail me, they, the unloved and 

unwed. 
** Whither fleetest, blessed spirit, with the radiance round thy 

head?" 
Ye wan questioners of the Night-time, now at last he answered : 
Only love can purge the wounded and uplift the stricken head. 



That sword of stars whirls downward like a road, 
I hear the sound of wings, and flaming breath, 
I lean from out my window, Love, thy lips ! 
The moon-washed world goes out in one eclipse. 
God, is this love or death? 



Violante, I have found thee. I have driven through pains 
immense. 

For the fugitive spirit conquers, trampling on earth's impo- 
tence — 

Violante, I conceived not cunning Death's magnificence. 

How his briefest moment brims with infinite magnificence. 
Bellaggio, Italy. 



[252] 



OTHER WORLDS 



FLAMINIA, FLAMINIA 

A RUINED bath, a stair that climbs the sky, 
A street of tombs, the noise of passers-by. 
What ancient tale is echoing in my brain 
That I should hear far misty sounds again. 
The clank of spears, a curse, a sudden cry. 



I see the grim procession turn and march 
Between the flying horses of the arch. 
The scarlet eagles and the praetor's band, 
And ineluctable doom from one quick hand 
Stern cheeks to whiten and stern blood to parch. 



A spiral column lifts its carven height. 
An out-blown fountain flashes rainbow light. 
What memory is it wavers, rushes back, 
A homing falcon down the centuries' track? 
/ am the criminal they seized that night. 



[253] 



FLAMINIA. FLAMINIA 



A roofless frieze, an altar cloven in two, 
A portal where no worshipers pass through. 
Framing the faint Campagna's billowy blue. 
What memory is it wavers, rushes back? 
Flaminia, Flaminia, H is you ! 



You took me when my hands were hot with blood. 

Between the Lydian spearmen as I stood; 

You had the eyes a man may not forget. 

(I have died a thousand deaths and see them yet!) 

And lips a god might taste and find them goodo 



Straight you uprose, a creature clad in flame; 
You called upon the lictors for my name; 
You loosed my cords, it was the vestal law. 
None could unloose the memory and the awe 
Of that man's violent heart you pierced and saw, 
Flaminia, my glory and my shame! 



I do not now remember what my crime 
But I can hear the spears' monotonous rhyme. 
Vanished my name and crumbled my estate. 
Yet this I know that it was iris-time. 



[254] 



FLAM INI A, FLAMINIA 



I may have wooed a hundred girls since then 
But surely as I stand 'mid living men. 
This day below the palace of the Caesars, 
Flaminia, your fierce beauty dawns again. 



Not grave and old as priestess virgins are 
But elemental like an evening star, 
A winged look in your tempestuous eyes 
And the large step of one who hails from far. 



To-day, Flaminia, round your sculptured feet 
White roses grow and iris, as is meet; 
But I, who read the fixity of your brow, 
Perceive your age-long grief, yea, even now. 
For the lost hours that once had been so sweet. 



You were a vestal, I a sinning man. 

Have you forgot how swift our glances ran? 

Smoke and gray dust are emperor, eagle, sword. 

But the unsmiling Sibyl will record 

The stormy instant that our love began. 



[255] 



FLAMINIA, FLAMINIA 



I feel the insolent fetters bite my wrist. 
One sullen face flares through a crimson mist. 
Flaminia, have the statued solemn years 
Taught you compassion for the lips unkissed? 
Rome, Italy. 



[256] 



OTHER WORLDS 



FRA BERNARDO'S VISION 

(Filippino Lippi's picture in the Church of the Badia, Florence) 

1 THOUGHT that I was dreaming on my book 
When first I saw the Lady's golden look, 



For evening huddled by the cloister wall 
And monstrous darkness flickered in the hall. 



But just above the cypress on the hill 

A shining and miraculous Cloud stood still. 



Lady, it is not I but you who sleep 

And the four cherubs watch upon you keep. 



In some dear dream of me you floated down 
Above the campanile of our town;^ 



[257] 



FRA BERNARDO'S VISION 



A shadow brighter than clear sunshine drips 
From where you lay your blessed finger-tips; 



The perfect calm of your unseeing eyes 

Is calmer than the depth of new-washed skies. 



To-morrow when you walk with seraphim 
This dream of yours will be a memory dim. 



The Cloud, the book, the soaring cypress tree. 
The little wistful angel at your knee. 



Lady, I lay my lips upon the page 
Memorial of your lovely pilgrimage. 



And always in my shadowy missal lingers 
The still illumination of your fingers. 



[258] 



OTHER WORLDS 



SANCTUARY 



IjIKE a foul bird I go, half limp, half fly; 
One leg drags back, the red fog's in my eye. 



There are some stairs that men climb on their knees. 
Lean clouted fools, but I go not like these, 

Muttering like these. 



They for a pale crown in some future life. 
But I, to spare my throat the imminent knife. 
The whispering knife. 



The white-faced Christian pirates brag and shout 
Of one King Christ whose ghost still walks about. 



[259] 



SANCTUARY 



I, knowing not the crime that I have done. 
Spilling my life-blood, crouch or run and run, 

Through waste lands run. 



They say a devil took the good King's form 
And beat Him naked into night and storm, 
A world a-storm. 



These eaters of the darkness think I lie. 
I, too, was once a king — a king, I cry. 



He wandered to a turbulent nest of thieves 
Who hailed Him lord. Sooth, he who can, believes, 
A child believes. 



If that King Christ was once a hunted man 
Knew He my stumbling horror as I ran.? 



Heard He the leprous hounds bay on his track? 
Was every bush a shape, the starlight black. 

Drowned, weltering, black? 



[260] 



SANCTUARY 



(Ye carrion dogs, the sword, not teeth that rend!) 
The fangs are at my neck. Is this the end, 

Crushed at the end? 



Nay, for this race of fear gives violent hands, 
I hurl them ofiF, I slay the evil bands. 



They say four courteous knights befriended Him 
And brought Him water when His sight waxed dim; 



Sir Luc and Sir Jehan ("VMiat face so pale?) — 
I have forgot the rest of that strange tale. 

That haunting tale. 



Did His feet stagger through the pathless fen, 
And when the ambush sprang at Him, what then? 
Forsaken then? 



I thrust two skulkers at the cross-roads there. 
Stabbed to the quick, or else 't was empty air. 
Swords in the air. 



[261] 



SANCTUARY 



They say all night He fought within a tree 
By the tall castle of Gethsemane, 

His battlement a tree. 



But when the frightful sunrise struck the hill 
Did His tongue cleave. His very heart stand still. 
Strangled and still? 



Once by a great Queen He was comforted. 
Blue-robed she came, a star upon her head, 
Her shining head. ^ 



And so before this great Queen's shrine to-day 
No creature dare put forth his hand and slay. 
Phantoms who slay. 



They do relate this king will come once more 
And rule — the Cross, the steps, the porch, the door! 
The lighted door! 



My wounded foot is like a leaden weight 
(Onward, O King 1) — the distance is too great 
It is too late ! 

[262] 



SANCTUARY 



They follow hard, by lust of blood enticed. 
Beware, forbear! Perhaps I am that Christ, 
That driven Christ. 



My feet refuse, my breath! Death if I tarry! 
In, in! Christ, to cry out Sanctuary! 

Christ, Sanctuary! 



[263] 



OTHER WORLDS 



THE GUILLOTINE 

The little 'page mounted the first step 

&0 help me God, my fingers are red 

For love of the Queen, God bless her, he said. 

'T is a gallant world, quoth he. 

When one may win by seven small stairs 

To high eternity. 

But there's a Thing at top of the stairs 

It likes me not for to see. 



The little page mounted the second step 

Gently and slow, quoth he. 

For these seven stairs are steeper to climb 

Than the hills of my Dauphiny. 

Has my cheek yet paled? quoth he. 

Well begun to-day is half done, they say. 

I would 't were not so, quoth he. 



[264] 



THE GUILLOTINE 



The little page mounted the third step 

Am I fine on the stairs? quoth he. 

There 's a troubadour sang at our castle gate 

With his foot on the stairs as he fain would climb 

To my lady sister. His brow was elate 

And his plume it shook when he swelled to the rhyme. 

Am I beautiful as he? 

And the song was of love, pardie. 



The little page mounted the fourth step 

Unbind my hands, quoth he. 

And I shall go gladly up to the top 

When I go like a lord and free. 

Messire, Messire, 

Oh, what do I hear? 

Or a bird or a voice or a bell-note clear? 

{His own dream wandering on the air. 

For thv^ they rave who climb the stair.) 

Nay, gentle sirs, quoth he. 

It is my sister in Dauphiny, 

The gold-haired girl that is calling to me. 



The little page mounted the fifth step 

Sweet sister, Melizay, he said, 
By these five fingers dripping red 



[2651 



TEE GUILLOTINE 



And these five stairs that I have trod 
That go a-bleeding up to God, 
Whatever doth this day arrive 
I fear not any soul alive. 
I beg you when the stairs are done 
Kiss my red fingers one by one 
And tell the dear Queen I went up 
As if I bore her banquet cup, 
Steady and smiling all the way. 
As you have taught me, Melizay. 



The little page stood on the fifth step 

Here let me pause, quoth he. 
Good gentlemen, I see a sight. 
Dust, foam, a banner — (T is a mite, 
His eyes do not perceive aright.) 
Quoth he. It is a mighty bird. 
Red-shouldered, savage, undeterred. 
Most like a winged flag, quoth he. 
The oriflamme of Saint Denis. 
God, but it leapeth lustily ! 
{He walks already as one dead^ 
And this the vision of his head.) 



[^66] 



THE GUILLOTINE 



The little page mounted the sixth step 

Ah, it is brave, quoth he, 

To stand so high, to look so far. 

Grant me a moment's grace, I pray. 

To thank my Queen for this her day. 

Hola, hola, quoth he. 

There's one rides fast, comes like a blast, 

The horse is white, quoth he. 

And that strong scarlet bird I saw. 

The oriflamme of Saint Denis. 

Look, gentle sirs! 

{His vision blurs. 

It is the death pang in him stirs.) 

It is my sister, friends, quoth he, 

The gold-haired maid from Dauphiny. 

Unloose this scarf that I may wave. 

Grant me this boon before the grave. 

This little boon, prithee. 



The little page mounted the seventh step 

{Seven griefs, seven sins, droned one. 

Before man's life is done. 

Our Lady pity thee I) 

Pray on apace, quoth he. 

Hola, hola, her crimson gown 

Flames through the ramparts of the town! 



[267] 



TEE GUILLOTINE 



Aye, dashed with foam, aye, dark with mud. 
Streams forward hke a blot of blood. 
My sister rideth well, quoth he. 
The gold-haired girl from Dauphiny, 
How good I paused to draw one breath. 
Avaunt, avaunt, the Thing called Death! 
Sister, how brave you bear, quoth he. 
The oriflamme of Saint Denis! 



' The Queen's own hand has sealed the deed. 
Kind gentlemen, I heg you read. 
Where is my little lad ? " cried she. 
My eyes are dimmed, I cannot see,** 



The little page stood on the seventh step 

Lo, I am mounted high, quoth he. 
The view is passing fair, pardie; 
Sirs, I commend your courtesy. 



Sister, the tears have wet your cheek. 
Now listen to me while I speak, 
I did not stumble on the stair, 
I only paused to breathe the air. 
And that was not a wrong, quoth he. 
What did the dear Queen say of me? 

[268] 



OTHER WORLDS 



TEMPTATION 



In the reflective largeness 
Of evening's yellow shore. 

Her room all swept and garnished. 
There sat one by her door. 



An ancient house her neighbor 
Stood like some wreck of flame. 

With sunken sightless windows 
Close-shuttered in their shame. 



Far in the distance hovered. 
Hung in the purple night, 

Mysterious, faint and starry. 
The City of Delight. 



[269] 



TEMPTATION 



Down the long road of evening. 
The ribbon-lying road, 

There came a stranger singing 
Unto the maid's abode. 



Her voice was like the wailing 
Of some weird violin; 

Her raiment was like sunset 
And swathed her to the chin. 



She paused upon the portal. 
Spake to that lonely one : 
"How chill it is and empty 
At setting of the sun! " 



The lonely one made answer: 
"The land is very still 

And all night in my chamber 
I hear the whippoorwill. 



'In this dull house beside me 
There seems but little stir 

And yet it hath a tenant. 
Oh, the wan look of her! 



[270] 



TEMPTATION 



'But yonder is that City; 

All night the street-lamps glow, 
And underneath their splendor 

The people come and go. 



'Here in this quiet country 
My neighbors are but few 

And they go forth and leave me, 
Go forth by two and two. 



'Sometimes to sound of weeping 
They close and lock the door; 

More oft with bugling laughter 
And they return no more. 



"Always there comes the stranger 
Whose face I cannot see, 
And down the dwindling distance 
They pass in mystery. 



'I, too, await a stranger. 
Blowing on flute or fife. 

To burst upon my quiet 
And call me into life." 

[271] 



TEMPTATION 



Glittered the starry City, 
Trembled the twilight land, 

Whereat a touch like silver 
Fell on the maiden's hand: 



I am the one awaited, 
I come to summon thee 

To life and love and knowledge, 
A passionate trinity." 



The lonely one made answer: 
"Thy face is clothed with dusk. 

Thy garments smell of burning. 
Thy hair of wine and musk. 



"Lean down unto me closer 

And speak me low thy name.' 
The stranger leaned yet closer 
Her sleepless eyes of flame. 

Her voice was like the wailing 
Of some weird violin; 

Her raiment was like sunset 
And swathed her to the chin. 



[272] 



TEMPTATION 



'Yea, I will lead thee quickly 
Unto thy soul's desire. 

Thy head shall be anointed, 
Thy feet be shod with fire. 



Even so they went aforetime 
WTio vanished from thy view 

And all within that City 

Walk thus by two and two." 



The lonely one made answer : 
"When I have tired of thee, 

Still must thou follow after, 
A dogging Memory?'* 



But hark, upon its hinges 
A rusty door makes moan. 

In the tall weedy garden 
The neighbor walked alone. 



She leaned across the twilight 
Upon the shattered gate. 

Her hair was gray like thistles. 
Her voice how desolate. 

[273] 



TEMPTATION 



"Maiden, her name is darkness 
And long are her demands. 
Her touch hath been upon thee. 
Go in and wash thy hands. 



'A life ago I listed 

The siren voice of her 
Whose garments smelled of burning. 

Whose hair of wine and myrrh. 



"My feet were worn with walking. 
She would not let me rest, 
And her two eyes unsleeping 
Burned holes into my breast. 



"I came back to my dwelling. 
The dust was on the floor; 
And still her shadow sits and sits 
Moveless within my door. 



'Maiden, her name is darkness 
And long are her demands. 

Her touch hath been upon thee. 
Go in and wash thy hands." 



[274] 



OTHER WORLDS 



WHEN SHE CAME TO GLORY 



Way, loose my hand and let me go! 

God's glories pierce and frighten. 
I want my house, my fires, my bread, 

My sheets to wash and whiten. 



I liked the dusty roads of earth. 
The brambles and the roaming; 

I liked the flowers that used to fade. 
The small lamp in the gloaming. 



The fields of God they blind my eyes. 

Dread is this heavenly tillage. 
I want the sweet lost homeliness 

Of the dooryards of our village. 



[275] 



WHEN SEE CAME TO GLORY 



Where are the accustomed common things. 

The cups we drank together; 
The old shoes that he laced for me, 

The cape for rainy weather? 



Dear were our stumbling human ways. 
His words' impetuous flurry. 

His tossed hair, the kind anxious brow. 
The step's too eager hurry. 



Oh, tall archangel with such wings. 
Your beauty is too burning! 

Give me once more my threadbare dress 
And the sound of his feet returning. 



[276] 



OTHER WORLDS 



BUYING AND SELLING 

1 HAD a vision at Nizhni-Novgorod, 

In the long street of the Caravanserai: 

For days I had bartered my shimmering heaps of carpets. 

Satin Bokhara, marvelous weft of Amritsar, 

Persian Moussul and faded rugs of Arabia 

Bought for a song from the skeleton children of deserts, 

Tawny wanderers weaving beneath a palm-tree. 

They alone know the loneliness of the sand-miles; 

I had seen them beat their breasts, the wild-eyed nomads. 

Offering, each one, his sole ancestral treasure, 

(Years of how many lives enmeshed within it. 

Youth of how many hearts distilled for its color!) 

Yet I smiled as I said to myself in fat complacence, 

"Brave and benevolent art thou, Mikhail Mikevec, 

Buying for nought from the famished hands of beggars. 

Selling again at the price of a prince's ransom!" 



Suddenly saw I among the plash of peoples. 
Hither and thither, bearded and belted Mollahs, 

[2771 



BUYING AND SELLING 



Mussulman merchants crying, fruit-sellers of Georgia, 

Half-naked boys with bulbs of Tiflis in baskets, — 

Suddenly saw I, and I was awake, not dreaming, 

A Splendor approaching, robed and winged. 

None accosted him, none even gazed or wondered, 

For they were blind to him, yea, such things may happen! 

Then perceived I that He, the Splendor, knew me. 

Showered upon me a golden ardor of sternness. 

Such as of old the Glory that strove with Jacob. 

Innocent, snowy, terrible, strode he toward me. 

In his hand a crimson purse redder than heart's-blood. 

Dreaming, the buyers and sellers bickered and bartered. 

Dreaming all others at Nizhni-Novgorod, 

I alone being aware of Him, the Transcendent, 

One of those mystic Sephiroth governing godhead, 

A Beauty, inscrutable Height, a Grace or a Wisdom, 

Such as walk through the Kabbala's twilight pages. 

Sent to me straight from the burning seat of heaven. 

Yea, such things may happen ! 



"Highness," I cried to him, "Highness, stop, consider! 
Carpets and tapestries woven for dancing angels!" 
(Such was I then, eager to ply my traffic. 
Think of the joy of me, Mikhail, being purveyor 
Unto his lordship the mighty Czar of heaven !) 
Slowly the Splendor took up my shimmering fabrics. 
While I who read on his brow the undimmed innocence 



[2781 



BUYING AND SELLING 



Of the untrafficking streets of Paradise, 
Named him my price. Exorbitant? Nay, surely a trifle! 
Who would insult the Almighty by mean moderation? 
And I knewthat winged Sephiroth would stoop not to haggle. 



But as the Splendor unclasped his purse of crimson 
Trembling and terror consumed me. Lo, down-dripping. 
Drop after drop of scarlet stained my Bokhara. 
Awfully towered he, the Winged, above me. 
Counting out with blood-drops my tale of exorbitant rubles. 
** Highness," I moaned in my terror, "lo, thou art squeez- 
ing heart-blood! 
Crushed in thy hand 't is a human heart thou spillest. 
Blood, it is blood thou art counting. Radiant Presence!" 



Opening his lips he spake, the Snowy Splendor: 
*' Anguish of child-birth has spun the woof of the carpet; 
Death has sat by the loom icith his feet on the treadle. 
Merchandise bought from the poor — unto God the price thou 

must render ! 
Bought for a song but the song is of lamentation. 
Bloody Mikhail, blood, is the sacred coin of heaven" 



This was my vision at Nizhni-Novgorod. 

Yea, and I speak the truth. Such things have happened. 

[279] 



OTHER WORLDS 



WHITE AZENOR 



1 HIS is the story my grandmother told, 
And never finished, of White Azenor: 
' White Azenor was such a fluttery thing, 
She never knew the time to go to bed. 
White Azenor was motherless and had 
A-world too many dreamings in her head. 



** White Azenor was such a starry thing; 
She had great eyes that made you want to pray. 
And yet when angelus rang at close of day 
White Azenor was off and far away. 



White Azenor sat on a glisteny rock, 

Like a white sea-bird, white of all the flock. 

White Azenor was motherless and so 

The kettles went unwashed till midnight of the clock. 



[280] 



WHITE AZENOR 



' White Azenor was such a blossomy thing. 
Like a blowing branch of snowy roadside may. 
Old men looked twice when she went by their way 
And crying children stopped to hear her sing. 



White Azenor was such a dreamy thing. 
You never saw her kneel to scrub the floor. 
For she was like a white moth on the wing, 
She dipped and flew at twilight out-of-door. 



"The good-wives sighed and scolded and they said: 

* White Azenor, she never will be wed. 
She sings too much and laughs too much and has 
A-world too many dreamings in her head.* 



Then something happened to White Azenor. 
A sort of ancient Wonder-Thing befell. 
My great-grandmother knew the story well, 
I've heard her mutter it and croon and tell 
A hundred times at moonrise by our door. 



But I — I have forgotten how it ran; 
I had the ending, child, when I began, 



[ 281 ] . 



WHITE AZENOR 



And now it 's slipped away like a creel of thread. 

I cannot bring it back and yet I know 

It's clear as day somewhere within my head.*' 



This was the story my grandmother told. 
And never finished, of White Azenor. 
Oh, what became of her? I do not know. 
Does she still fly at twilight out-of-door? 
I do not know. Perhaps when you are old 
You too will not remember any more. 



And so because Grandmother cannot say 
The end of Azenor I like to think 
She is that snow-white bird who skims to-day 
Along the ocean's rocky brink. 



[2821 



OTHER WORLDS 



I HAD A DREAM 



A DREAM, you say, no mortal man may bind! 
Imagined gold waking one does not find? 
Which, then, is real, the road where gropes the blind. 
Or starry trails of his unstumbling mind? 



So from the windless country where things seem. 
But no sound comes, rushes a silent stream 
That whirls my swimming soul far out to sea 
Borne by the strong white waves of this my dream. 



[283 



OTHER WORLDS 



THE GREEN GLADE 

(Portuguese) 

There's a green glade, Soares, 

'Twixt Almol and the sea. 

Set in my dream as far as 

The shore of Time-to-Be, 

Where green caves guard the Lares 

Of immortality. 

I shut my eyes, Soares, 

And through the glimmer they march. 

Tree-ghosts in green procession. 

Thin wings in lifted arch; 

They sob, they throb, they pulsate. 

Like lips in silent prayer, 

A lost maid's last confession, 

(Dead lips, drowned gold of hair.) 



A green glade, green and stiller 
Than swans' deserted nests. 
Or phantoms of the Tiller, 
Mirage of green sea-crests. 



[284] 



THE GREEN GLADE 



There Spring, the earth's cup-filler, 
With pale young blossomy breasts, 
In that green glade, Scares, 
Brews wine of love-in-death; 
And swaying through the tender 
And flame-tipped trees 
Sings like a doomed net-mender 
At green dawn by dim seas. 



[285] 



OTHER WORLDS 



ANGUS THE OUTLAW 



IjADY of love, upon a green spring day 

In Broeeliande, 
I caught the falcon fled from your pleasaunce; 

I touched your hand. 
I am that beggar whom you shone upon 

A moment at the stile 
And then they flung me to the road again. 

Rich with your smile. 



Lady of love, perhaps one future day 

Your tears will rise; 
The beauty of the dawn, a too-sweet song 

Will cloud your eyes. 
Know then that somewhere on some lonely hill 

I watch that dawn 
And that my sorrow is the lute you hear 

When noise is gone. 



[286] 



ANGUS THE OUTLAW 



Lady of love, as I shall thread alone 

A sullen wood 
Dead petals of a rose drifting will fall 

And stir my blood. 
Then shall I gather those curled ruined leaves 

Close to my breast 
Thinking that once, perhaps, upon your bosom 

They knew sweet rest. 



And if upon your trembling bed you wake 

Some wind-swept hour 
And see a wild face in the moon-lit cloud 

Tossing above your tower. 
Lady of love, *t will be the ship of passion 

Wrought of pale fire 
And I the cloudy pilot driving her. 

Driven by desire. 



You will imagine in strange dreams that night 

A moated pond, 
A ragged fellow who bears you in his arms, 

A vagabond; 
And waking you will sit and stare and say 

"How real it seems'" 
Lady of love, 't is I that carry you 

Captive in dreams. 



[287] 



OTHER WORLDS 



UNFINISHED LIVES 

I 

1 HE world revolved, swam in a rosy mist, 
Her feet I wreathed and kissed; 

Fate called to conquer, suffer or rejoice, 
I only harked her voice. 

Millions passed by. I sought in every place 
Her solitary face. 



What happened, lover, at the end to thee. 

What guerdon or delight.? 
Lord, pity me! I lost her in the night. 



I heard the maniac city surge and roar; 

I closed the door 
To still the clamor and I drew the blind 

So to forget my kind. 



[288] 



UNFINISHED LIVES 



I said : Neither against or with the stream, 
But I will weave my dream. 



Oh, misanthrope, what in the end for thee. 

What wove thou of those strands? 
Lord, Lord, have mercy, heal my shriveled hands! 



in 

Thick darkness fell and with no cry but one. 

The Horror cometh. Run! 
There seemed no use. The dead wails rose and jeered. 

It was Myself I feared. 
Better to end it all and be forgot. 

And so I fired the shot. 



What wishest thou, O suicide, of Me, 

What gift or grace.? 
Lord, lift me up but hide from me Thy face. 



IV 

I saw men stagger, struggle, faint and fall; 
I loved them all. 



[289 



UNFINISHED LIVES 



They were misshapen, ugly, snarling elves, 

Thej^ were Myselves, 
But blinded to the Gleam. "Look, friends!" I cried. 

For I would be their guide. 



What happened, shepherd, at the end to thee. 

What gave they, crown or sword? 
Teach me to understand. They slew me. Lord! 



[290] 



OTHER WORLDS 



THE BIRTHPLACE OF MORNING 



W HERE is the morning made, worldlings. 
On the reef of what solar sea. 
Where the star-dust spins 
And a sphere begins 
In the womb of velocity? 



Where is the morning made, oceans. 
That gradual wonder-brew? 
Poured from whose hand 
On what headland, 
Creating life anew? 



Where is the morning made, lowlands. 

Kindling your limitless edges? 

Ye may plunge the night through 

To corral and pursue 

While the Prairie-Torch leaps from your ledges. 



[291] 



TEE BIRTHPLACE OF MORNING 



Where is the morning made, cities. 

What kings and what powers confer? 

What burning sky-helms. 

What towering realms 

Are touched with the first dawning-stir? 



Where is the morning made, mountains. 
The hush of that great Intimation? 
A whiteness stiller than death, 
A silence, a signal, a breath — 
Lo, the Alps up-fling salutation! 



Where is your morning made, spirits. 

The dawn-soul freed of its bond? 

('T is the symbol of birth 

For the threshold of earth.) 

But beyond and beyond and Beyond? 



l^n] 



OTHER WORLDS 



THE DEATH WOUND 



1 THOUGHT to lie in peace beneath the mould. 
To staunch my wound with darkness, fold on fold. 
To sleep, forget and sleep until the world grew old. 
But ah, to beat thus upward on slow wings 
While that my wounded bosom drips and sings 
A stave of hurt intolerable things. 



{Gahriely a soul comes with a bleeding breast. 

Go thou and lead her to a place of rest. 

Nay, for the wound was at his hand whom she loved best.) 



They told me Paradise was a white abode 

With never crying or dark or ocean flood. 

But all I see is tears and blood, blood, blood. 

I hear whisht sounds and birds beneath the roof; 

Brave foreign creatures move, they talk, they stand aloof; 

Their gold eyes shine like sunlight through a woof. 

I 293 1 



THE DEATH WOUND 



(Raphael, thou knowest my unabashed swift mind ! 
Go thou, who led Tobias to the blind. 
Thou art half-woman, radiantly kind.) 



I did not know that Heaven could be so cold; 
Creatures, nay, come not near but let me hold 
This sword unto my heart till God is told. 
Yes, I am cold because of blood I spent 
And of the piteous way by which I went. 
I thought that here in Heaven one got content. 



(Gabriel and Raphael, listen while she speaks ! 
Earth's darkness is upon her troubled cheeks. 
Oh Michael, what is this red dream she seeks ?) 



How calmly that last night we kissed and slept. 
Then in his dream — "Love, must it be?" he wept. 
How sweetly that last night we kissed and slept 
Until he rose and knelt above the bed 
And stabbed me and the reluctant sword-point sped 
Clean to my heart. "Love, pity me," he said. 



[294] 



TEE DEATH WOUND 



{Gahriely this earth-soul with a bleeding breast. 
To clasp the sword that killed her is her quest. 
To hiss the blow of him thai she loved best.) 



Was my poor life a thing to hug and save? 
Perchance if I had smiled and been more brave 
He would have tossed a rose into my grave. 



(Michael, sword-bringer, for thee this task is meet. 
Lift tlie four corners of thy starry sheet. 
Take thou her sword and lay it at God'' s feet.) 



Lo, they have reft away the crimson sword 
By which alone high heaven should be adored. 
Give me to die again, O Lord, Lord! 



Once more to know the rapture of the bride 

Within his arms as on that night I died. 

Then the sharp steel forever in my side! 

Brave Creatures, give me back the sword, she cried. 



[295] 



TEE DEATH WOUND 



{Gabriel, this earth-soul with a bleeding breast, — 

Go thou and lead her to a place of rest. 

Nay, for the wound was at his hand whom she loved best,) 



[296] 



OTHER WORLDS 



THE TWO TRAVELERS 

ibO short a time ago it was they two looked face to face 
And then, between those two, the sudden 
Vast silent Space. 



No portent came, even that last time, the while he left her 

door, 
To whisper that it was farewell 
Forevermore. 



Always he sees her standing there: "Write soon. Good 

luck. Good-bye." 
Nor did they dream one was to travel 
Beyond reply. 



[297] 



THE TWO TRAVELERS 



"You and your ship — the wide blue ocean — it seems so 

far," she said. 
Yet farther, farther, farthest, she. 
In her still bed. 



They two vho tramped to school together when they were 

playmates small. 
Now one beside the knees of God 
Understands all. 



Thus, wakeful nights, he thinks and thinks, watching pass 

many a star. 
Of Time, of Beauty, and that she 
Is where They are. 
Pabis, 1911. 



[298] 



THE SOUL AND THE EVIL DEED 



THE SOUL AND THE EVIL DEED 



THE SOUL AND THE EVIL DEED 

BY MAUD WILKINSON 

The Evil Deed to the Soul 

r ROM tracks convergent through the vast of night 
My stranger atoms gathered and the deed 
Was sown, in thy one reckless hour, a seed 
To ripen and put forth its evil might. 
Li vain against such strangHng arms to fight! 
I suck thy Hfe, insatiate; thou shalt bleed 
My thirsty veins to swell, my flesh to feed. 
As still I cling upon thee, a moveless parasite. 
Through wide-eyed nights and gray mechanic days 
My Protean forms shall fix thy startled gaze. 
That ever fresh and hot the shame may sting. 
I have bowed thee down that used to float and sing; 
I have blanched thy lips to shudder in amaze: 
'I am a soul that could have done this thing !'* 



[301] 



TEE SOUL AND THE EVIL DEED 



The Soul to the Evil Deed 

Thou foul shape taken by my shapeless thought 

One idle moment, — Out by that same door 

I opened once. Out! aye, return no more! 

My living self thou hast not snared and caught; 

Only an obscene semblance hast thou wrought 

Of mildewed garments that the soul once wore. 

Even now my free exultant self doth soar 

Above the storm by which her wings were taught. 

Abhorred deed, thou hast no part in me. 

For when the hght shines then the shadows flee. 

Thou shell of my dead thought, where is thy power 

Except I brood upon thee, cringe and cower, 

A muzzled slave, — but this is not to be. 

For I am born again, yea, every hour.^ 

* "The Soul to the Evil Deed" was a conclusion projected, but never com- 
pletely worked out, by my sister. From fragmentary but significant notes and 
phrases found among her papers under the above title, I have endeavored to 
build up the sonnet according to her rough draft as faithfully as I might. 



[3021 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



PERSONS 



Yves 

GUINETH 
RODIC 

Armel 
Le Nouet 
Margot 
Perronik 
The Bazvalen 
The Breutaer 
Fantik 
A Lady 



Baron of Quimp-Aven 

His Daughter 

A Druid Player ^ 

Count of Kerity-Penmarch 

An old Physician 

A Maid-servant 

A Little Lad, an Innocent 



Musicians; Servants; Courtiers 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 

(A Play in One Act) 

Scene: A hall in the Chateau of Quimp-Aven. A raised plat- 
form for musicians at the left. Behind it a stairway and 
door leads to an upper chamber. The great door at the 
right leads to other apartments of the Chateau. A window 
opens on a low balcony at the back, which in its turn con- 
ducts to the garden. The walls are hung with tapestry, 
partly concealing the balcony window. A couch, a foot- 
stool, and a small table occupy the stage-center. There is a 
deep fireplace. Massive sideboards of Breton carving line 
the walls. 

When the curtain rises, Margot is shown arranging 
the cushions on the couch. Perronik runs in, hair and 
fingers dripping. He stands, resting on his oar, a strange 
little figure. 

Perronik 
Margot, the sea, the sea! 

Margot 
Hush, simple! What of the sea, then? 

[305] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 
"Hush, simple! What of the sea, then?'* Woman — thy 
name is — Margot. 

Margot 
Thou wilt drown thyself some day with this sea-madness. 
And thee a slim switchling that can no more put about our 
Breton barges than Lady Guineth. 

Perronik 
What, I? And Lady Guineth? But we love the sea, both 
of us, and we are kin to the little White-Skirts out there. 
To be drowned! What is that? Only to rest in the great 
bosom of Mother Ankou, the sea-mother. She rocks us to 
sleep, to sleep. 

Margot 
Hush thee, with this shivering talk of Mother Ankou — 
and this my mistress's wedding-day, and she, poor lady, 
has lain abed two days. 

Perronik 
Linen bride leads by the hand sackcloth joy. 

Margot 
La, folk will understand you when sea-gulls talk, no 
sooner. 

[306] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 
My little brothers, the sea-gulls, speak to me every 
morning. By the same token, Margot, I will tell you this. 
Lady Guineth is a linen bride, for her face goes white as a 
sheet at Armel's name. Therefore the joy she gets of him is 
sackcloth, for it is no joy at all. 

;^L\RGOT 
Poor Perronik. Your feet are here, but your eyes are 
over there, — in the next world, you know. 

Perronik 
Where are my ears, then? 

Margot 
Where King Marc'h's were, under his long hair. But 
lookee. Lady Guineth would have her way and she 's on the 
stair now. Off with you. I '11 tell you later of the wedding- 
robe. It's all the color of the sun in May. 

Perronik 
I saw it, Margot, at the white lavoir. 
The Washers of the Night were washing it. 
The Washers of the Night, those three gray women, 
Who wash the unhappy sheets for crying brides. 

Margot 
{Clapping her hand on his mouth) 
Off with you. 

[307] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 
The White-Skirts are dancing. There'll be a storm this 
night. (Humming an old Breton air) 
Koantik ro marionik, 
Koantik a delikadd. 

(Enter by hall door Yves and Guineth) 

Yves 
Lean upon me, my daughter. 

Guineth 
(Withdrawing from her father) 

I am strong. 

Yves 
Look how you sway, my little lily girl. 

Guineth 
{Waving him backward) 
The floor swayed under me. 

(Margot supports her as she half falls on the couch.) 

Perronik 
Dear heart! The floor swayed under her, as the floor of 
the ocean might sway under drowned souls. But who ever 
heard, Sir Baron, of a chateau floor swaying like water? 



[308] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 
Your ear, poor dunce, takes but the outer sound; 
Your heart arrives not at the inner sense. 

Margot 
(Kneeling by Guineth) 
Ah, goa, goa! Look to her, Sir Yves, 
Her hand is hot like fire. I have heard tell 
There 's a prime fever cure at Saint Leonard, 
You pluck a black snail from some cranny or crevice 
Of the moss-grown northern wall with your own fingers 
And hang it down your neck in a grass-green bag. 

Guineth 
A round wet shiny snail ! You sicken me. 
Saint Leonard save me by some other cure. 

Yves 
Saint Leonard save her by some other cure 
Of high-born ladies, not of peasant folk. 

Margot 
I know a-many it has cured, Sir Baron. 

Guineth 
The singing in my ears! 

[309] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 
(At the window) 

The bells of Is! 

Yves 
The bells of Is! That city under the sea! 
That city of drowned souls ! Hush, Perronik. 
The bells of Is foredoom calamity. 
They have not pealed for twice a century. 

Perronik 
(Undisturbed) 
Your ear, poor dunce, takes but the outer sound. 
Your heart arrives not at the inner sense. 

Yves 
(To Perronik, threateningly) 
Out with you. 

GUINETH 

Father! 

Yves 
Nay, I'll have him flogged. 

GUINETH 

His father saved my life when I was little. 

And the high tides took my childish wandering feet. 

Have you forgotten? 



[3101 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 
I must not forget. 
Impudent, freakish, wild, he stands forgiven. 

Perronik 
I am forgiven. 

GUINETH 

Go, little one. 
(Perronik stands by the garden window. A violin 
sounds from below in the garden.) 

Perronik 

The music. 
{Exit Perronik by the balcony window.) 

GuiNETH 

{Dramng a long breath) 
Hark to the music! I am rested now. 
The walls are steady and the floor lies quiet. 

Yves 
{In wonder) 
The walls, the floor! They have not moved at all. 

Margot 
{By Guineth) 
The roses blossom in your cheeks again. 
Lady Guineth is fair — 

[3111 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

So I have heard 
Too many times. 

Margot 
The flowers, the broidery — 
{A strain of music comes from the garden,) 

GUINETH 

Go to the window, Margot; look below. 

Whence comes that strain of music from the garden? 

(Margot goes to the window.) 

Yves 
White cloth and silver broidery like frost 
In sparkling fretwork on the dead white snow. 
And mists of lace about your golden hair, — 
Guineth, you shine like some clear northern dawn. 

GUINETH 

I hate this brave attire, too white, too cold! 

Yves 
What would you, daughter? 

Guineth 

Colors, rags and dreams! 
To run like a forest flame from hill to hill, 
To be clothed in flaming suns from head to feet, 

[312] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



To leap, to burn, to be a singing terror. 

To warm my hands in the blood of Babylon, 

To quench my thirst with the cup of Kings outrageous. 

Yves 
You have a fever or you speak in riddles. 

(Margot makes a gesture calling Guineth to the 
window. Guineth rises. Yves watches her 
curiously.) 
What 's your desire, Guineth? 

Guineth 

Nothing or — yes! 
Father, your child's desires are overtopping. 
Instead of which — seed-pearls and samite ! 

{To Margot who whispers in her ear.) 

What? 

Yves 
Margot, enough! We need no more of you. 

(Exit Margot. Yves gazes at his daughter.) 

Guineth 
(Interpreting his look) 
I am bridal-beauteous, am I not? A thing 
All sweetness, whiteness, modesty. A thing 
Frigid as Virtue with her missal book. 



[313] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 
But the bride's robe becomes you well, Guineth, 
And that deep sapphire glow within the eyes 
Is a fair portent for the bridal night. 

Guineth 
I hate the name of bride! 

Yves 

Child, speak not so. 
The maiden hate is but a maiden shame 
Soon changed to love within your husband's arms. 

Guineth 
Father, as we look face to face to-night 
Let not a mockery be the wall between us. 
Read in my heart. I '11 open it to you. 
It is no virgin fluttering of the pulse 
That makes me tremble when I touch Armel. 

{A castle bell strikes the hour.) 
One hour is left. I want it. Give it me. 
Then Armel's silken fingers, and the bright 
Hawk-shrewish peeping court of Quimp-Aven. 

Yves 
Guineth! Yet ever were you rash of speech 
And stormy like a day of March. 

[314] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

Not March, 
Midsummer rather, with scorch of trembling suns 
And sudden winds that turn to ink the sky 
And sudden rains that whiten the vexed sea. 



Yves 



But listen to me 



GUINETH 

(Rising) 

There is nought to say. 
My father, that I have not heard before 
An hundred times. 

Yves 
One word! 

GuiNETH 

Yes, I am wild. 
And you are wise, I difficult to please. 
And Count Armel of Kerity-Penmarch, 
Is rich in virtues and in — lands, forsooth — 

Yves 
Nay, nay! 

1315] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

The court approves the splendid match, 
And I myself will know myself, perceive 
My folly of the past and thankfully 
Bow down before the Golden Idol. He, 
He is the god decrees 'twixt Quimp-Aven 
And Kerit J -Penmarch this marriage-bond. 

Yves 
It grieves me, daughter, on your wedding-day 
That you should chatter like a peasant girl. 
Remember you are Armel's honored bride, 
Countess to be of Kerity-Penmarch. 

GUINETH 

Remember? Ah, would God I might forget 
That I am lady, not a peasant girl. 

Yves 
Guineth, by your own will you were betrothed. 
Two years ago. 

Guineth 
Two years ago, before — 

Yves 
What, before what? 

[ 316 I ■ 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

Before I was a woman, 
Before I knew what love and life might be. 
Before I knew the shining heights of heaven. 
Before I knew — {She reels.) 

Yves 
Why do you look so strangely, 
Guineth, my child! Some fever fires your blood. 

GUINETH 

Ice at my heart and fire within my brain. 

Yves 
Stay here in quietness. You are not well. 
Le Nouet with his simples will I send 
To ward the sickness from you. 



{Exit Yves.) 



Gtjineth 

Herbs will not. 
Balsam of tree or pungent root, bring ease 
To soothe the sore heart or the wounded soul. 

Perronik 
{Appearing suddenly at the balcony window) 
I know a cure for sickness, tweedle-dee-dee, 
It 's walking in the garden up and down. 
The pretty bird-box thrust beneath its arm. 

[3171 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

Rodic? 

Perronik 
He goes by the name, but lie 's the piper 
Your mother sang me about and all the world 
And the good little folk dance to his piping, she said. 
You will keep step to it, mistress, even to-night; 
Poor Perronik will listen at Tal-Yvern. 
(That is a wonderful cavern deep from shore. 
It 's hung with maidens' dreams for tapestry.) 

GUINETH 

I *11 not keep step to music any more, 

Except to fairy piping, Perronik, 

And that, they tell me, comes to those who die. 

Perronik 
It 's a good and pleasant thing to sleep and die; 
My father was a naughty naughty man 
To snatch you back from the White-Skirts long ago. 
Do you hear them calling? 

Guineth 

The White-Skirted waves? 
Ah, Perronik, are you happy, happy you? 

Perronik 
I am always happy. 

[318] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

Yet we are not kind 
And we do not understand you, Perronik. 

Perronik 
Their breath does not blow on one, the unkind people's. 
It's to understand myself that makes me happy. 
Lady Guineth, do you understand yourself? 

GUINETH 

{Spreading her arms, signifying the emptiness of her bridal 

splendor) 
Little child, Perronik, how old are you ! 
This thing called I is deep beyond all reading. 
Oh, coward that I am, weakling of fate. 
Rebel at heart, yet vassal to my father. 
Brooding above the blossom of to-day 
I lose the gardens of the large to-morrow. 
Like a miser hugging his one gem, while Time 
That coins a countless treasure passes by. 
Slips irremediably and leaves him beggared. 
Love, for thy sake I held my peace and dared 
Not stir, not breathe within my house of cards 
For fear it tumble round my lover and me. 
When lo, it fell, and, fool, I find myself 
Built round about insidiously, with these walls, 
These walls impregnable to happiness. 

[319] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Once they had crumbled at a finger's touch. 
Now 't is too late, too late, too late! Oh, fool! 

Perronik 
Am I the fool? 

GUINETH 

Nay, I, and now too late 
I am grown wise and know. 

Perronik 
'T is always late when you take the long way home. 



GUINETH 



The long way home? 



Perronik 
It is so dark and winding. 

GUINETH 

There is no home but the beating heart of love. 
A hundred different ways my soul is torn, 
And my thoughts scatter like the autumn leaves 
Eddying and whirling in the wild west wind. 
The easiest way has always been my doom; 
I 've drifted down the current with the tide 
Until I reach the all-engulfing sea. 
To hate Armel, to love Rodic, to be 

[320] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Bride of Armel and mistress of Rodic; 
Never to dare to tell my father all 
And yet to tell him half, to his amaze; 
Win his distrust, yet suffer his commands; 
Persuade myself to play the daughter's part 
Yet yield my heart in secret to Rodic, 
To be the creature of a thousand moods, 
And never to be happy, is Guineth. 

Perronik 
Don't cry, my lovely lady ! I will teach you. 

Guineth 
What will you teach me, innocent? 



Perroxik 



The secret. 



Guineth 

Truly? 

Perronik 
That's it. Aye, "Truly" is the secret. 

{He starts to go, Guineth detains him.) 

Guineth. 
Nay, tell. 

[ 3-21 ] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 
{Dragging to get away) 
It's on the lips of all the world. 
"Aye, truly, sir," and "Truly, lady," they say. 
But they that speak the word are none the wiser. 
There 's the great secret. But you '11 not remember. 

{Exit Perronik.) 

GUINETH 

{Thinking) 
"I'll not remember." 

{Enter by hall door Le Nouet and Margot) 

Le Nouet 
'T is the fever from over-joy, belike, and too much brood- 
ing on veils, wimples, and broidery patterns. 

Margot 
I have seen merrier brides, and for veils and broidery 
patterns she might be Saint Hildegarde, for all she broods 
on them. Ye 'd best not go into divination, Le Nouet. 

Le Nouet 
Your saucy ignorance does not know how deep 
We doctors delve into the human heart. 

{He holds Guineth's wrist.) 
Hum, hum, it leaps too fast. Margot, my simples. 

(Margot arranges his bottles upon the table.) 



[322] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

Good leech, I am not ill, but over-wrought. 
Some soothing essence that will bring me calm; 
This amber liquid pleases. 

Le Nouet 
Oleum 
Amaygdalce expressum, excellent — 

Margot 
To fill an old man's mouth. 

GUINETH 

And this black horror? 

Le Nouet 
Extractum pulsatillse fluidum. 

Margot 

(Mockingly) 
Extractum toadius and frogidum. 

Guineth 
'T is poison to the taste? 

Le Nouet 

A tang of bitter, 
A nutty after-smack, but bringing sleep 
And coolness to the riotous heated brain. 



[323] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

{Tasting it) 
I like it. 

Le Nouet 
Look, dear lady, I will measure — 

GUINETH 

{Watching) 
Six tapering drops, and if I drink too much? 

Le Nouet 
An overdose, a spoonful, lulls to sleep. 
Stilling the heartbeats, and one does not wake. 
{To Margot, as he goes out) See, Mamselle Ignorance, 

what wisdom is. 
(To Guineth) Take care! 

{Exeunt Margot and Le NoufiT.) 

Guineth 

I will take care. Vision of heaven! 
Two spoonfuls in the wine — Rodic and I — 
Instead of life and trouble, love and death! 

(Perronik's words suddenly come to her. She 
remains a moment lost in deep thought.) 
It's on the lips of all the world, he said. 
Why should it haunt me so, his innocent babble? 

[324] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



**Aye, truly, sir," and "Truly, lady," we say. 

But if we lived it, life were happiness. 

That 's the great secret! Oh ye kings of the world. 

Look what a conflagration. That's the torch 

To light the hungry traveler to his home 

On the beating hills of love. 

{She walks about as if with a flambeau held high 
aloft.) 

A light, a light! 

Yves 
(Outside) 
Light, bring the lights. 

{Enter Yves and Maid-servants with candles) 

You walk here in the dark.'^ 

GUINETH 

No, father, I am in the blessed light. 

Yves 
Ah, you are happier, my own girl again.'* 

GUINETH 

{Aside) 
Now to confess and tell him all the truth. 
Stake my heart's happiness on this last throw. 
Father, you love me? 

[325] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 
Child, I love you truly 
Even as a father should. 

GUINETH 

A loving father 
Will make his daughter happy? 

Yves 

Truly so. 

GUINETH 

"Aye, truly, sir," and "Truly, lady," we say. 

Yves 
What's that? 

GUINETH 

A rune that chanted in my brain. 
If I should ask some strange outrageous thing? 

Yves 
Speak on. 

(Perronik appears on the balcony, unseen by those 
in the room. He beckons to some one below.) 

[326] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

Father, were I to ask this boon, 
A broken troth with Armel of Penmarch, 
And to be wed this night with young Rodic? 

(RoDic appears on the balcony beside Perronik and 
listens.) 



Yves 



The druid stroller? 



GUINETH 

Yes, but prince at heart. 

Yves 
The zithern-player, Rodic? 

Guineth 

Father, the player 
Of heavenly harmonies on the lute of life. 

Yves 
The weaver of strange steps, Rodic, the druid? 

Guineth 
The weaver of strange steps, who knows the ways 
Of the soul's enchanted forest. 

[327] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 

What, Rodic? 
Saint Gildas' holy ashes, you are mad. 
A heathen vagrant, jabbering devilish charms, 
The leader of a crew of starveling fellows ! 
Zounds! I would see you sooner in your grave. 

^RoDic makes movement and Guineth sees him.) 
What, have you seen a ghost, you went so white? 
Look, ho, we have a listener! See the arras! 

(Yves draws his sword.) 

Guineth 
A puff of wind. 

Yves 
{Moving to the balcony) 
I '11 thrust it with my sword. 

Guineth 
(Restraining him by her hand) 
Father, I jested when I named Rodic; 
An idle jest, a silly jest, forgive me. 

Yves 
By halidame, the arras did not tremble 
For silly jest! 

[ 328 ] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 

{Leaping forward from the balcony) 
Poor Perronik, good sir. 

Yves 
How came you here? 

Perronik 

On N'Oun Doare's horse. 

Yves 
Speak plainer. 

Perronik 
Truly, sir, I came afoot. 
Know-Nothing was a simpleton like me. 
He had a horse that flew, in his head, you know. 

Yves 
Begone, begone! (Exit Perronik.) 

GUINETH 

Strange little Perronik, 
Uncanny innocent! Now leave me, father. 
Le Nonet's cordial steals along my blood 
And weights my eyelids. 

{She sinks upon the couch.) 

Yves 
Rest in peace; farewell. 

[329 J 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

I shall not trouble you again with such 
Poor fitful freakishness. It is a mood 
That passes with the cheerful candlelight. 
Knock for me at the hour. 

Yves 

Rest well, my child. 
{Exit Yves. Guineth locks the door and puts the 
key or the table.) 

Guineth 
Rodic, Rodic! 

(RoDic parts the tapestry and runs forward.) 

Rodic 
Guineth, my own! {They embrace.) 

Guineth 

Once more! {They kiss.) 
So rash, so rash . Rodic ! 

Rodic 
I came in fear 
For your sweet sake. The simpleton fetched me hither 
With a breathless tale of the White-Skirts of the sea, 
And drowning souls and truth like a hilltop torch, 
Guineth and tears and a sword, and I know not what. 



[330] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUTNETH 

(Laughing) 
Half, 't is the babble of waves on a shining beach. 
And half, an oracle's wisdom, yet, Rodic — 

RODIC 

I ran like the wind from the forest where I dwell. 

GUINETH 

You heard the ebb and death of truth in me? 
For I, the coward ever, dared not speak! 
A.nd this my marriage-day, that darkling ever, 
Has hovered like a vulture in the blue. 

Rodic 
All the great future lies within one's hands. 
Why shall one choose the less.f^ 

GUINETH 

Ask me not why. 
Oh, I am sick of whys and argument. 
Why does the house-fly creep into the web? 
Why does the night-moth flutter to the flame? 
Why do I hate Armel and worship you? 

(She clings to Rodic.) 
(Some one tries to open the door.) 
Hark there! 



[331 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



RODIC 

The doors are locked? 

Perronik 
(Appearing at the window) 

Locked, locked, 
As she is now within your arms, Rodic. 
But in a moment, tirra-lirra-la. 
The silly music and the silly folk, 
Armel with lace about his blue- veined wrists. 
Sir father with the bristling hoary brows. 
And Guineth like a kneeling frozen saint. 
There is a smirking idol sits on high. 
Whose glossy fingers mete out gold and gold 
And breaking hearts are coin of the realm to him. ^ 

{Exit Perronik; Guineth has listened affrighted.) 

Rome 
Nay, nay, Guineth, two lovers, when they will. 
May snatch the topmost fruit from paradise. 
Why shall we not wrest happiness out of life 
And fling defiance at the Golden Idol? 

Guineth 
Hush, my Rodic, you do not dream his power, — 
That Golden Idol worshiped by the world. 
He holds both you and me upon his palm. 
Look, Rodic, no more hours of happy freedom. 



[332] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



They clip my wings and clap me in a cage. 
Then comfort me with mincing baby words 
And pink forefinger thrust between the wires, * 
That's Armel's way with Fifou, my woodpecker. 
And Fifou's wild black eye gleams murder at him. 

RODIC 

Name me not Armel. Sweet, this is our hour. 
As if it were the last hour upon earth. 
We are like two upon a coral isle 
Set in a waste of slow-upswelling sea. 
That narrows ever till it laps our feet. 
Guineth, this hour is high tide of the sea. 

GuiNETH 

I would that it were so! How sweet to die. 
Locked heart to heart and rocked to sleep forever! 

RoDic 
Sweeter to live! Mind you the day, Guineth, 
When we two sat beneath the whispering pines. 
The solemn pines that sentinel the shore. 
You with the idle zithem on your knee. 

Guineth 
Beloved zithem, master of our fate! 

[333] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



RODIC 

And a vagrant wind, like the soul of a druid rune. 
Came tiptoe down the stairway of the trees. 
Whispering of memories and mysteries. 
Exquisite ancient melancholy things? 

GUINETH 

Yes, I remember. 

RoDic 
And I took your hand 
In mine and sought the soul within your eyes. 

GUINETH 

Yes, I remember. 

RoDic 
And you yielded to me 
With such a sweet shy grace and then we leaned 
Closer together till our lips grew one. 

GUINETH 

{Listening as if inspired) 
I know, I know! That was our spirit wedding. 
I '11 not betray that hour. 

RODIC 

God in you speaks. 
(Knocking at the door. Guineth pushes RoDic 
behind the tapestry.) 

[334] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

Wait for me, wait. They must not find you here. 

{Knocking repeated.) 
(Aloud.) Who's there? I will lift up before the altar 
The torch of truth. Stand like a statued thing 
Or the light arras will betray you. {Knocking.) Yes! 

Yves 
(Without) 
Guineth! 

GuiNETH 

Yes, father. 
(She unlocks the door. Enter Yves and Armel. 
Greetings from Armel.) 

Yves 
Who is here. 5^ 

Guineth 

1,1, 

A new Guineth, cured of her ancient grief. 

Armel 
(A meagery effeminate personage) 
I bring a gariand weighted with my love 
And perfumed with our hopes of happiness, 
To grace your beauty at the wedding-altar. 

[335] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

{Balancing the garland as if to weigh it) 
It seems not over-heavy with its burden. 

(Armel binds it upon her head.) 

Yves 
Now to the Chapel! 

GUINETH 

Has the good priest come? 
Father, I'll have no priest but him alone — 

Yves 
Aye, he will come. 

Armel 
Now to the marriage-altar! 
(GuiNETH takes her father s arm and looks back- 
ward as she slowly leaves the room.) 

GUINETH 

And afterwards, — God only knows the After. 

{Exeunt Guineth, Yves, Armel.) 

RODIC 

{Appearing : speaking solemnly) 
God and the Idol toss the dice for her future 
Beneath the Oak-tree of the Isle profound; 

[3361 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



The great Player bides his time like the White Reaper, 
But when he strikes, his stroke falls like the Reaper's, 
Swift, sudden, silent, sure and pitiless. 

Perroxik 

(Appearing at the balcony) 

One does n't bring back a runaway horse by cracking the 

whip. 
By to-morrow's sun the scythe falls like a blind man's 
cutting air. 

RODIC 

Innocent! 

Perroxik 
Innocent you ! Look in the stables and you see the horses 
saddled. 

RODIC 

Whose .^ 

Perronik 
The Sea-Horses. They will bear you off to freedom. 

RODIC 

What d' ye mean? 

Perronik 
Keep your wits about you, Rodic. The Sea-Horses will 
ride far to-night. 

[3371 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



RODIC 

(The sea for the first time is heard beating against 
the sea-wall.) 

(Musingly) 
What if to-night the mighty Atlantic rose 
And whelmed this fragile city of the sea? 
What if to-night Guineth should speak the truth — 
I at her side — 

(Voices.) 

Yves 
(Outside, in consternation) 

A laggard priest, forsooth, 
That cannot breast the high tides of our sea! 
(Enter, talking, Yves, Akmel, Guineth, Ladies and 

Gentlemen. Rome steps outside the balcony.) 
What though the waves beat loud? Our boats are worthy. 
I would have given him half the city's tax. 
A wretched beggar's bedside. Pouf ! 

Guineth 
(Pitifully) 

A dying man! 

Armel 
(With a slight sneer) 
Is there in Quimp-Aven no other priest 
To serve a baron's will? 

[338] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 
It was her whim. 
And yet I have a chaplain of the castle 
He is sick abed — but he shall serve my bidding. 

GUINETH 

That other is so noble in his bearing 
He lends a kingliness to each ceremony. 
Pray, let us wait. 

Armel 
(Perfunctorily) 
Your pleasure is my law. 

Yves 
Child, will you not give welcome to our guests? 

Guineth 
Dear friends, such joy gives thanks for comradeship. 

(Yves goes toward the window to look for the 
belated 'priest.) 

Yves 
There 's one outside. 

Guineth 
{Under her breath intercepting him) 

Father, I beg you, I that am your child. 
One moment longer I must be alone 
On this last night. 

[339] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



A Lady 

(Overhearing) 

"Alone?" 

Yves 

"On this last night!" 

GUINETH 

Until the feast. It lacks some minutes yet. 
After the feast, the altar. 

Armel 
(Loudly y turning toward Yves) 
First, the feast.'' 
A strange reversal, this? 

Yves 
So be it, fair count. 
Our guests are bidden. We must give them cheer. 
'T is passing cold to wait i' the mouldy chapel, 
And the priest is late. God knows he must have reason. 
So — warm ourselves, eat, drink ! A novel custom — 

Armel 
(With forced gallantry) 
We'll make this custom habit in Quimp-Aven. 

Guineth 
(To Perronik) 
Send Margot to me with my tiring-things. 

[340] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 
To make you beauteous. I will fetch her to you 
Fast as the Gray Wolf's wife home to her husband. 
Trust me, mistress. 

GUINETH 

(Watching him) 
Off like the wind he goes. 
Flies up the stairway like the magic sandals. 

Perronik 

(With a knowing nod) 

Trust me, dear mistress. (Exit Pebronic.) 

Yves 
(To his guests, withdrawing) 

Come, for she is bride. 
Mistress to-night of all our moods and minds. 

(Exeunt all hut Guineth.) (Rodic appears.) 

RODIC 

(Staring at Guineth's white-garlanded face) 
This wreath? You are wedded, then? 

Guineth 

It is God's will — 

[3411 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



RODIC 

(Interrupting) 
No god of mine — 

GUINETH 

Aye, listen and understand. 
It is God's will — no priest has come — I am thine. 

RoDic 
You are mine, mine, mine. You have made the great con- 
fession .'^ 

GUINETH 

(Faltering) 
Because the priest came not I held my peace. 
But I shall speak. 

RoDic 
Is it so hard, Guineth? 
Yes, yes, I know, your world, your church, your blood. 
You bear the burden and I who am so strong 
Must stand, must wait, — be dumb — 

Guineth 

Long were you dumb ! 

RoDic 
I have learned the use of silentness. — What am I» 
Son of an outcast priestess, knowing naught 
Except to play. Thrust forth from each man's door. 
And what was I, to lay commands on you? 



342] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GuiNETH 

Mine is the task. My life they will not touch — 

RODIC 

Ah, if you were a wanderer hke myself, 
Or a druid girl with oak-leaves in her hair! 
Off with this hateful wreath! 

GUIXETH 

(Hurling the flowers from her) 

Rodic, I swear, 
Thus do I fling away all falseness from me. 
The poisonous flowers of falseness — thus and — thus! 
Lay your commands upon me — 

Rodic 

Sweet, I love, 
I love you. But I am your Sorrow. 
The music beating at the heart of me 
Sings, "Take her and forsake her never. Flee 
To the deep forest, lovers." 

GuiNETH 

How far, think you. 
The druid player and Guineth might go? 

Rodic 
As far as paradise and the throne of God. 

[343 1 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GuiNETH 

To-morrow all the country would be rife 
With trumpet-call, sword-song, trample of hoof. 
Wild noise of horse and rider, riding down 
The poor lost lady and the druid thief. 
If we had fled, it should have been before. 
Before the great light broke upon my soul. 

RODIC 

The light of love? 

GUINETH 

Yes, and the light of truth. 
Rodic, when I was little wrong and right 
Were hedged off from each other like two fields, . 
And wrong was plainly wrong and right was right! 
But now — 

Rodic 
Is one not braver far, Guineth, 
Who dares to do great wrong unflinchingly 
Than one who vacillates? 

Guineth 

But what of her 
Who dares to do the right unflinchingly 
At cost of life or freedom? I must be true. 

[3441 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



I have cheated them. I have tricked them with my lies. 

Armel, my father, Quimp-Aven, the world. 

To- say one thing, to think and be another. 

To love and not confess before the world. 

That is not noble. I shall stand to-night 

And say — "Father, Armel, my friends, all ye, 

I have wronged you, promising with alien lips 

What the heart promised not. I was afraid. 

I trust myself to your nobility 

(Rodic, the world is better than we believe). 

I do not love this man that you have chosen, 

The noble count of Kerity-Penmarch : 

I love Rodic the nameless druid player 

And I would give my heart and life to him." 



Rodic 
{Embracing her) 
This is like music I have dreamed. How far 
Will the brave vision lead us, you and I? 

GUINETH 

As far as Paradise and the throne of God. 



Rodic 
{Taking from her bosom the vial) 
What's this.? 



[345] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

Le Nouet's draught. I thought one time 
That rather than the altar this were right. 

RoDic 
Poison? 

GUINETH 

Nay, peace, a medicine, to bring 
One moment of dark sleep, windless and deep. 
To those who suffer. Or — 

RoDic 

What else? 

GUINETH 

Or death! 



RODIC 



Give it to me. 



GUINETH 

Nay, fear not now. My hand 
Will wield a brighter sword than that of death. 

RoDic 
Yet give it me, for, after your confession 
What may befall? 

[346] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

List, if my courage fail, 
By the amber glow of death in this small bottle 
I pledge myself to you. 

RODIC 

You will not fail. 
I — I shall play the music for the feast. 
And know, Guineth, my music shall be lord, 
Lord of the heart, a kingdom limitless. 
I '11 tear their very souls to-night with love. 
I'll weave enchantment till the world dissolves. 
I '11 conjure palaces to float in air, 
Then, when this mist of sweetness blinds their eyes 
And their wild pulses beat untamably. 
Then, Guineth, is the crystal hour of fate. 
The globed moment when you shall draw their wills 
With flaming truth, a torch in your lifted hand. 
(What little hands to hold so great a beacon !) 
Watch me, aye, listen, as you sit at wine, 
To my violin's savage ulalune, a god 
Imprisoned that shall sing, shall sing revealing 
What things we cannot dream. He is silent now 
Until I lean my ear, I, suppliant, 
And draw my bow across the quivering strings. 
Then shall the great ecstatic god, unleashed, 
Burst like an oracle forth of heavenly doom. 
Twice shall I draw my bow across the strings, 

[347 1 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



When I hear the approaching Moment's rush of wings. 
Twice shall I draw my bow across the strings. 
The sound will fall like leap of mountain springs. 
Or mellow thunder that the heat-time brings. 
The third sign is the last sign. Then, Guineth, 
It is your hour to speak the uttermost things. 

Guineth 
My lover, I shall listen and understand. 

{Voices are heard at the door,) 
Hark, hark, the people. Rodic, hide yourself. 

RODIC 

I will slip downward by the balcony. 
Remember the three oracles of my music. 

Guineth 
Look, look, the guests are in the garden now. 
The lanterns twinkle in and out the trees. 
Mount upward by these stairs and take that door, 
'T will lead you to an upper chamber. Go. 

Rodic 
{As he disappears) 
Forget not that the third time is the sign. 

{Exit Rodic.) 
(Perronik rushes in ahead of the people. Their 
voices are heard and the lights seen twinkling in 
the garden as the doors are opened.) 

[348] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 
Lady Guineth, shall I be page-o'-the-steps, 
And open the door that leads you to the light? 

Guineth 

The light is so far off. Oh, Perronik, 
There 's blood upon your hand. 

{Enter Yves) 

Perronik 

It does not hurt. 

Guineth 
There 's blood upon his fingers, father, look! 

Perronik 
'T is only where I was knocking at the door. 
It had been closed so many centuries. 

Yves 
What door, you scatter-brain? Tut, run away! 

Perronik 
(To Guineth) 
I may open the door and let the children in? 

[349] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

Yes, let them in and play with them yourself. 

Perronik 
I will let them in if I can find the key. 

{Enter guests. They regard Perronik in amaze) 

Yves 
He 's a fantastick, always prankt with weeds. 
Guineth! 

GUINETH 

{To guests) 
Friends, welcome all. 

{Enter Armel) 

Armel 

Guineth, my wife! 

Guineth 
Call me not wife. 

Armel 
Do you not wear my wreath? 

Guineth 
Wait till the vows are made before the altar. 

[350] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 
(To the servants) 
Ho, bring the candles, for each guest a candle! 

(Exeunt servants. A chatter of talk among the 
guests.) 
And music ! Fetch Rodic, our druid player. 

Armel 
Your wreath, Guineth, where is the wreath of roses? 

Perronik 
(Picking up the flowers) 
Alack, the wreath! A wreath of foam. Bitter white roses 
sown by ghosts. Look you, myself I could cut quainter 
flowers from the altar-candles. 

Yves 
Brat, hold your peace. 

(Enter Rodic and the musicians. Yves points out Rodic 
to Armel) 

A half -tamed curious fellow 
But with a sort of wild philosophy 
That rings at times like wisdom. He plays well. 

Rodic 
Sir, I shall play to-night as never yet. 

Perronik 
Will you play for the ancient gods or for gold or for me.^ 

[351] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



RODIC 

I'll play for her. 

Aemel 
{To Guineth) 
The wreath? 



GUINETH 

When Margot bound 
These pearls among my braids, the garland fell 
(Perchance 't was overladen with your joy), 
And the ripe roses lost their weight of petals. 

(Servants bring trays upon which are small lighted 
tapers, one for each person. They are set upon the 
sideboard. Enter next, in their characteristic cos- 
tumes, flat felt hats, dangling velvet ribbons, 
wide troupers, yellow-embroidered vests, the Baz- 
VALEN and Breutaer, whose business it is to 
carry on a wordy mock contest.) 

Yves 
Friends, listen to the merry contest now 
Between our bazvalen and breutaer; 
The bazvalen, brave champion of our bride. 
The breutaer, his keen antagonist. 

{With a murmur of expectancy the guests divide 
themselves on two sides of the room, leaving the 
champions in the center. Perronik 

[3521 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



among the people, looking inquiringly in each 
one's face. He finally takes up his station by 
Armel, studying his face, unabashed, as a child 
might do. Armel displays in dumb sJiow annoy- 
ance and embarrassment as the contest proceeds.) 

Bazvalen 

The thunder of the sea round Tal-Yvern 
Outroars the tumult of your own La Torche; 
So will the words of Guineth's champion 
Outdo the quick retort of Armel's man. 

Breutaer 
The flashing of the sunshine on the sea 
Fares farther than the booming of the wave. 
And lightning, sibilant sword-stroke of the storm, 
Availeth more than thunder's tempest voice. 

{Applause.) 

Bazvalen 
But the soft sunshine of the lady's smile 
Conquers more men than blade or battle cry. 

{Applause and a minute of general talk. Then 
a sudden hush out of which unexpectedly Le 
Nouet's sole voice rises.) 

Le Nouet 
And then, Fantik, I blushed — 

[353] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



All 
{Laughing) 

Fantik, he blushed. 

{There is a minute's talk and again a hush. The 

faint sound of waves is heard washing up against 

the sea-wall. It is heard from this time continu- 

o'tisly, but with increasing force.) 

GUINETH 

Hark to the sea! Like a wild beast it roars. 

Yves 
Dance ye and drown the anger of the sea. 

Perronik 
The dance, the dance! Some dance with Tronkolaine 
In the Land-of-the-Rising-Sun — 

{Music begins, couples form. A stately measure is 
commenced.) 

GUINETH 

{To RoDic) 

Your music nowj 

Armel 
Guineth, your hand! 

(GuiNETH and Armel take places, hand in hand, 
and dance.) 



[354] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 

And some will dance in heaven 
A passe-pied with the mortal sins that are seven. 

(GuiNETH stops, listening to Perronik's voice.) 

Armel 
The simpleton! Guineth, how bright you are 
In the light badoise, you, star and front of all. 

Perronik 
But I shall dance with dead men under the sea ! 

Guineth 
(Shivering, she stops) 
I do not like this dance, too slow the measure. 
Now the gavotte ! Who follows? I shall lead 
The court of Aven such a merry dance 
That ye shall all cry mercy, by my troth. 

{The music changes. They begin the gavotte.) 

Guineth 
(Stopping) 
The music should be different — so — and so — 

(She hums. Rodic strums on his violin in unison. 
Guineth leaves Armel and approaches Rodic.) 

Rodic 
Thus, lady? 

[355] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Armel 
{Sullenly) 
I'll instruct the fellow. 

Yves 
(Gently) 

Nay. 

Armel 



I'll have it not! 

GUINETH 

(To Armel) 
A broken fiddle-string. 
Do you not note the flaw within the music, 
Like some dark welt across a golden canvas. 
Or leaf to stem misplaced in some fair pattern? 

RoDic 
Lady Guineth, your ear is well-attuned. 

(The music of the gavotte begins again.) 

Guineth 
(Taking Armel's hand for the dance) 
Now for the gay gavotte! One — two, one — two. 

Armel 
I do not like that black-browed druid fellow; 
The devil's in his eye. 

[356] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

(Coaxingly) 

But there's an angel 



Within his bow. 



(They dance. All dance.) 



Armel 
(As the dance comes to a close) 

Thou art my only angel. 
Sir Yves, I wax impatient for the mass. 
Please you to send a servant for your chaplain. 

GUINETH 

Nay, but the wine and candles. First, the feast! 

{The servants bring the table, spread for the banquet. 
All sit down. Guineth and Armel face down 
stage. Yves and Fantik are at the ends. Per- 
RONiK on a footstool between Yves and Guineth. 
Music continues and the sound of the sea is 
heard.) 

Yves 
Armel, we drink to you. 

(Guineth does not lift her glass.) 
Guineth, you drink not? 

Guineth 
{Looking to Rodic) 
To my heart's love, long life! And now the next! 
Bring me the glasses and one more for him, 
[357 1 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Rodic, the master player, that the wine 

May stream and gleam along the marriage music 

Like fire along the heather. 

{A servant standing by her side, Guineth fills two 

glasses. She holds up one she has filled, looking 

at it.) 

Yves 
Ninety years 
This wine hath mellowed in the royal cellars. 



GmNETH 

{Takes up an empty gohlet) 
And ninety summers glow within its heart 
Blood-red as poppies, yet more marvelous far, 
Methinks, this empty goblet, hundred-hued 
And fragile as a bubble in the sun. 
But look! 

(Suddenly, as if in alarm, she looks away, across 
the hall. The guests look in the same direction, 
up stage, away from the table. All heads being 
averted, she empties her vial into the two glasses.) 



Perronik 
{To Rodic) 
Watch what she does! 

[358] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETII 



Yves 
{To GuiNETH as the guests return to their glasses after the 

momentary confusion) 
What saw you, daughter? 

GUINETH 

'T was the arras 
Blown, as I thought, within the candle flame. 
But the quick gust, repentant, caught it back. 

(GuiNETH gives one of the glasses that she has just 
filled to the servant. He approaches the sideboard 
and hesitates.) 
Yes, set it there. 

{To RoDic) Rodic, the wine is yours. 

RODIC 

I thank you, lady. 
I drink not now. 

GUESTETH 

Not now but afterwards. 
(Armel has taken up the poisoned wine which 
GuiNETH set down for herself. Guineth, sud- 
denly seeing him, snatches the glass away.) 
Sir Armel! but that glass is mine, is mine. 

Yves 
Guineth! 

[359] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Armel 
(As if to a child) 
I will not steal her pretty goblet. 

GUINETH 

It was my mother's cup and so I love it. 

Yves 
Now the last toast and sweetest, to Guineth! 

(The music stops.) 

All 
Guineth, Guineth! 

(Guineth holds her glass untouched. After all 
have drunk, she speaks.) 

Guineth 
The bride-cup is for all save me the bride. 
May I drink afterwards? 

Armel 
(Misunderstanding) 

Sweetest and last! 
The children's game. 

RODIC 

(As if to himself) 

The game is not yet played. 
He wins who stakes the highest, unafraid. 

([ 360 ] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Armel 
What mean you, fellow? 

RODIC 

'T is a rune I say, 
To bring the bar of music to my mind 
When I forget, as swimmers in the sea. 
Their strength forspent, will catch at any waif 
To draw them portward. 

Yves 
'T is a rune, you say! 
What follows, then? 

GUINETH 

I know the verse that follows, 
He wins who plays the highest unafraid, 
And love 's the light that leads both man and maid. 

{Music continues.) 

Armel 
Aye, love 's the thing. Here 's to the bridal night. 

{All drink except Guineth and Rodic.) 

GUINETH 

Hark to the rising waves. 

Perronik 

They are coming, coming! 

[361] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Arbiel 
How grim a neighbor is the sea to you 
In this your desolate marsh-bound neck of land. 
Like him who walked beside that king of old 
With finger laid on lip and whispered "Death!" 

{The sound of the sea subsides, but not entirely,) 

Yves 
And yet the sea brings also health and wealth. 
Pouring an affluent stream into our landes. 
When at low tide we set ajar the gates 
And the tired water washes to our lap 
Her leathery harvest of brown dulse and kelp. 
Crisp shell and ragged seaweed, savorous 
Of rich sea-essence and fertility. 
This is the autumnal high tide of the year. 
And when the tide swells to its utmost bourne 
The sea-wall trembles and the sea-gate shakes 
And even this our castle seems to rock 
As if a mighty and importunate host 
Thundered their batteries at our very door. 

GUINETH 

What if, to-night, the sea-gate should be shattered? 

Yves 
Then only Christ himself could save us all. 

[362] i 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GUINETH 

What, even here? 

{The sound of the sea.) 

Yves 
The city of Quimp-Aven, 
Tower and castle, ladies, knaves and knights. 
Would lie beneath a seethe of turbulent billows. 

(All cry out in horror.) 
But one key only will unlock the gate 
And I alone have mastery of the key. 

{He holds up the key on its chain, which depends 
from his belt. Perronik, seated on the footstool 
by his knee, eyes it curiously.) 

GUINETH 

I would hold the key a moment. 

(Yves gives it to her across the table.) 
It is heavy. 

Yves 
It is no amulet, no lady's charm. 
Aye, heavy doom is moulded out of this. 

(GuiNETH lays it down by her plate.) 

Perronik 
(Taking the key) 
It is a pretty thing! If it were mine 

[363] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



I'd hug it savagely, like a wolf -mother 
Howling alone — 

(The servants bring lighted tapers and set them by 
the plates.) 

Yves 
Here's candle-prophecy. 
Whose burns the brightest hath the happiest heart. 
Whose longest burns will have most numerous years 
And whose is first extinguished, first is dead. 

(All watch their candles silently. While they are 
so doing, Perronik, clasping the great key, half- 
crouches, half -runs backward, and reaches the 
balcony door. He slips behind the tapestry and 
opens the door. The wind rushes in and a louder 
sound of the sea. The wind extinguishes, all to- 
gether, the candles. The guests cry out.) 



Guests 



Gone out! 



Le Nouet 
How passing strange! 

GUINETH 

And all together 
As if in answer to an unseen signal! 

[364] 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETU 



Yves 
Together to be summoned from this life! 
A fairer fellowship was never fabled. 



Voice 
(Singing outside) 
When the Wine of Life is rosy 

(Wine undrunk is sweeter still), 
Men and maidens, drink it, drink it. 

Drink your fill. 
Bitter are the drops ye spill 

(Wine undrunk is sweeter still). 
(GuiNETH rises, listening. All listen. The voice 
grows fainter, as of some one receding.) 



Singing Voice 
On the bushes, roses red 

(In the graveyard, roses). 
See, they burn like flames of fire! 
Roses, roses, roses. 
(The music stops with the singing voice. All look 
surprised. A little faint clapping commences. 
GuiNETH hughes it.) 



GuiNETH 

Hush, hush! It was too spirit-like for noise. 
[365 1 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Aemel 
{To Yves, as all rise) 
Sir, to the chapel? 

GuiNETH 

But the priest, the priest! 

Yves 
{To Armel) 
Armel, I crave your pardon for delay. 
My daughter has a fairy's blood, I think. 
She is full of strangenesses and fantasies. 
It was her mother's mood before her birth — 
(God rest her blessed soul!) 

{All cross themselves.) 
Sir, I will send 
Le Nouet for the chaplain of our house. 

Le Nouet 
He lies abed with a sickness of the heart. 

Yves 
But he will come. Go. fetch the father to us. 

{Exit Le Nouet, shaking his head. The servants 
noiselessly remove the table with its glasses and 
candlesticks.) 
Daughter Guineth, now is your time to ask 
The bridal gift that barons of our line 
Grant to their daughters on the bridal eve. 

[366] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GumETH 
Now is my time? (She looks at Rodic.) 

Yves 
Ask, wisely, O Guineth! 

GUINETH 

(Looking significantly toward Rodic) 
A little time to think! Play, play, Rodic! 

(Music commences.) 
Why, I am dazzled by the greatness of it. 
As if one looked the sun straight in the eye, 
I am blinded by unleashed imagination; 
It pours a furious glory. 



Yves 
Child, your wish. 
And this last wish is law. 



Guineth 

What do I wish? 
(Rodic gives his first signal on the violin. It is 
heeded hy Guineth, but unnoticed by the others. 
Almost imm£diately comes an onrush of noise 
from the sea. A slight commotion in the room and 
exclamations.) 

[367] 



Ah, ah! 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



All 
(In confusion) 

Yves 
The thunder of the autumn tide! 



Singing Voice 
(Faint and far away) 
Little swift folk from the sea. 

Calling, calling, calling 
(Pale eyes shining, long hair twining). 
Come, love, carry me. 
(The noise of the sea waxes continually louder and 
nearer.) 

Yves 
It is the simpleton. 

(He goes toward the balcony window.) 

GUINETH 

Nay, do not look! 
'T is like a disembodied spirit's voice. 

Singing Voice 
(Coming nearer) 
Little wild folk from the sea, 

Calling, calling, calling 
(Cold arms dripping, white feet slipping). 
Come, love, bury me. 
(Enter Perronik, dragging by the hand Le Nouet) 

[368] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 
(To Le Nouet) 
What is it? Speak out. 



GUINETH 

(To herself) 
It is some dreadful thing. 



Yves 
(To Le Nouet) 
Where is he, then, this priest? 

Le Nouet 

Sir, ask me not. 
(He pulls to free himself from Perronik, who still 
holds his hand.) 
He dragged me in. 

(Le Nouet seems terror-stricken.) 

Perronik 
Sire, I will give his message. 
(He approaches Yves and kneels. Then^ as if with 
changed purpose, goes to Guineth.) 
Nay, I will speak to no one but to her. 

(He whispers to Guineth. She totters, almost 
faints.) 

[3691 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



RODIC 

(Still playing) 
Look to the lady! 

(Armel catches her.) 

Fantik 
You 'd think she harked to Death. 

GUINETH 

There is nought to fear in Death, in piteous Death. 

Yves 
The message, daughter, and then, before the priest. 
Yea, in his presence, speak your gentle wish, 
One he may listen to and sanctify. 

GUINETH 

He may not listen to any wish or message. 
Not mine or yours. 

(She bows her head and crosses herself.) 

All 
The priest is — 

(All understand and cross themselves.) 

Yves 
{Muttering) 

God in heaven! 

[3701 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Le Nouet 
(Nodding) 
It happened thus. Even as he rose to obey. 
He fell like this, his arms out like a cross 
(God rest his soul !) 'T was palsy cardiac. 



Perronik 
(Gayly) 
Never mind to moan and mourn. We all must go 
And the dead dance merrily. 

(Noise of the sea,) 



Armel 

The other priest. 
Who lends a kingliness to each ceremony — " 



Perronik 
I know the one. He 's Mother Ankou's brother. 
He 's iSshing now for a dead soul out at sea. 
He holloed to me very far away. 
He will come at midnight. 

Armel 

Fortune haste the hour. 



What, eh, Guineth?, 



[371 



THE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 
Now to forget this shadow. 
A goodly man passed to a goodly rest, 
Your wish, Guineth, seasoned with this brief shadow. 
Will shine the richer, like a ripened fruit. 

(RoDic continues playing softly, his eyes fixed on 
Guineth, and suddenly gives the second signal, a 
strange hush breaking in upon the flaring music.) 

Guineth 
I ask a little gift, not over-much. 
Nay, if you gave me Babylon, or Rome 
Or all the pearls upon a thousand coasts 
Or all the gardens of Semiramis, 
It were not half so greatly to my mind, 

{Great noise of the sea.) 
As — 

{A great roar of wind-swept ocean drowns her voice,) 
Hark, the waves! 

Perronik 

They beat not like her heart, 
Not half as passionately, despairingly. 

Guineth 
I ask — Take pity on me, friends, and swear 
You will help him to fulfill the solemn oath! 

[372] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Yves 
I need no help. 

Perronik 
We all of us need fulfillment of our vows. Some swear by 
blood, some by salt tears and some few by laughter which 
is sadder than tears. 

(RoDic gives the third signal.) 

GuiNETH 

Father, I ask this thing. 

I ask — not to be hungry any more. 

I have hungered since I was a little child 

And my sweet mother left me. I have been 

A changeling and a beggar and an alien, 

A wanderer without a country here. 

I went a-hungry. No one gave to eat. 

Until one came — 

(RoDic stops playing and lays dovm his violin. He 

appears still to be guiding the mitsicians, but is 

slowly approaching Guineth.) 

Yves 
Guineth, what gift, what gift.^ 

GUIXETH 

Father, I ask for leave to love and live, 
I ask to speak the truth, to live the truth, 

[373] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



I ask the satisfaction of my hunger. 

I ask for love, for love, for love — and truth. 

{She holds out her arms to Rodic, who enfolds her. 
There follows so great a roar from the sea that 
the musicians stop playing and all are visibly 
alarmed.) 

Perronik 

Little wild folk from the sea. 

Calling, calling, calling — 

Fantik 
(Hysterically) 
The sea, the sea, I am afraid. 

(Yves and Armel, both in anger and amaze^ 
approach the lovers, who separate, but Guineth 
clings to Rodic's arm.) 

Yves 

You mummer. 
You — druid — harlequin of the wilderness. 

Fantik 
{More wildly) 
The sea, the sea, I am afraid. 

{The cry is taken up from outside.) 

[374] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Voices 
(In the street) 

The sea, the sea! 
{There is a maddened rush of the courtiers for doors 
and windows.) 

GUINETH 

{To RoDic) 
Play, play, my lover. 

(RoDic goes to his platform. The musicians play 
solemnly.) 

Yves 
{Raising his two hands to calm the people) 

Calm yourselves, good friends, 
I '11 send my watchmen out to watch the gate. 

{He fumbles for the key at his belt and finds it 
missing.) 
The key, the key! Guineth! 

GUINETH 

I do not know. 

Armel 
{In shrill terror, hurling aside two ladies who cling to him) 
Betrayed ! 

{He makes for the stairway, followed by a group of 
people.) 

I 375 ] , 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 
(Indignantly) 
Run, run, 
You noble bridegroom, save yourself the first. 

(Armel pauses.) 

Yves 
(Looking) 
The great iron key. She took it from my hand. 

Fantik 
She held it in the dance. 

(A great roar of water,) 

All 



Guineth, Guineth! 

Yves 
The gate is open. The sea-gate is open! 
And death pours in upon us. Who hath done it? 

(A silence. Each one looks to his neighbor.) 

Armel 
(Freeing himself roughly from his neighbors) 
Nay, let me go. 

(Exit Armel. Fantik discovers from the water 
on the floor that the sea is creeping inside. She 
lifts her slippered foot to feel of the sole.) 

[376] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Fantik 

Jesu, the floor is swimming. 
(Others look downward, then drop to their knees in 
prayer, as a church bell clangs warningly from 
outside. Armel, by the same door he went from, 
returns, slamming it behind him.) 



GUINETH 

A wild beast 's on your track? 



Perronik 

The bells of Is! 



Armel 
{Chattering) 
A beast! A greater horror! Sea climbs up 
Behind me! 



Yves 
Trapped. We are trapped. Whose is the deed.'' 

Perronik 
{Swinging into the center with the great key in his hand) 
Sir, I have done it! I! 



[377] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



GuiNETH 

No! 

Yves 

You! 

All 

You! 

Perronik 
Aye, truly, sir, I let the children in, 
I brought the White-Skirts with their bridal gifts 
For our dear lady. 

{The church bells clang again outside.) 
Hark, the bells of Is! 
(The bells echo faintly as from caverns under-sea. 
All rush to the windows and doors, showing great 
fear, some huddling together, some kneeling, some 
clinging to Yves, some to Guineth. The music 
keeps on solemnly playing.) 

Le Nouet 
{At the window) 
There 's a boat below us. 

{A rope is flung up. Yves catches it.) 

Yves 
'T is the priest has come! 
The rope, the rope! I have it. We are saved. 

[378] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Fantik 
{Trying to climb out) 
Oh, help me! 

Lady 
Help me first. 

RODIC 

(Leaving the musicians) 

Play on, my fellows. 
{He assists the people to escape, one by one.) 

GUINETH 

Good friends, fear not, there is room for every one. 

Yves 
God, how the water rises! 

{Frantically to the musicians) 
Stop the music. 

RoDic 

{He aids in lifting a lady) 
Sir, let the music strike the note of courage. 
Music hath power even in the uttermost hour. 

Perronik 
(Sings) 
Little swift folk from the sea. 
Calling, calling, calling 

[3791 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



(Pale eyes shining, long hair twining), 
Come, love, carry me. 
Lady Guineth, are you glad? 

Yves 
(To GuiNETF as most of the people have been lifted down into 

the barge) 
Child, as you love your life, leap to the boat. 

Guineth 
Nay, I will be the last to leave. 

RODIC 

Come, love. 

Guineth 
These first. 

{She beckons to the musicians. There is a great cry 
from below.) 

Voices 
Push off, push off! 
(The musicians drop their instruments and run to 
the window, crowding each other. Yves tugs in 
vain to hold the rope against the strength of those 
below who are striving to push off. Rome takes 
it from him.) 

[380] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



RODIC 

Slowly, take care. 
(He controls his men, till the last one has disap- 
peared. GuiNETH, RoDic, Perronik, Yves are 
now alone in the room. Rodic springs to the bal- 
cony-edge and looks down.) 
There are yet two places in the boat. Sir Yves. 

Yves 
For you and her. 

Rodic 

Nay, sire. 

Yves 

My daughter, now! 
{He kisses her and would lift her to the boat.) 

GuiNETH 

Whether I go or stay, it is with him. 

Yves 
Truly? 

Perronik 
Aye, "truly" is the word to-night. 

[381] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



RODIC 

Oh, haste, the sea rocks and the barge puts ofif. 

{He takes Yves by the arm.) 

GUINETH 

Father, I beg! 

Yves 
Then must it be — farewell. 
Rodic, you have borne yourself like a prince of the blood. 
(GuiNETH and Rodic force Yves to take his place 
in the overladen barge. He raises his hands in 
despair.) 
My children. 

GUINETH 

Father! 
(The boat with its occupants disappears from view 
in the darkness.) 

Ah, they all are saved! 
{Fragmentary cries and the counts of the rowers are heard.) 

Cries 

{Fainter and fainter) 
Guineth — Guineth — Guineth — Ah, lost — lost — 
lost. 

(Rodic and Gthneth, hand in hand, stand 
entranced^ listening.) 

[382] 



TEE MARRIAGE OF GUINETH 



Perronik 
Lady Guineth, 't is they are lost, not we. 

{The swaying surface of the brimming sea now rises 
and is visible almost on a level with the window- 
edge. The dark blue outline of the antique barge 
is seen far away, against a rift of moon-lighted 
sky. With arms outspread in the attitude of a 
swimm^Ty Perronik chants.) 

Perronik 
My little sisters I come, I hear your call, 
Good night, sweet lady! 

{He plunges into the water.) 

Guineth 
{As she is enfolded in Rodic's embrace) 

Love, to Death and thee! 
{The water surges into the room and extinguishes 
all the lights. Far away the light of the barge 
tvnnkleSy is extinguished.) 



INDEX 



INDEX 

After-Glow 123 

After the Theater 12 

Andalusian Village, An 138 

Angel of the Cornice, The 3 

Angus the Outlaw 286 

April at Giverny 112 

At the Salon 21 

Baker's Boy, The 18^ 

Ballad-making in Seville 146 

Batalha 165 

Birthplace of Morning, The 291 

Box at the Opera, A 17 

Broadway Remembers her Childhood 8 

Brooklyn Bridge 10 

Buying and Selling 277 

Camilla Returning from Abroad 129 

Canada Road, The 117 

Castle of the Order of Christ, The 167 

Cathedral at Chartres, The 156 

Chapel of the Virgin, The 14 

Children of the Belated Lands 5 

Christmas Eve 245 

Coal-Mine, The 55 

Curb-Brokers, The 29 

Dead Travel Fast, The 250 

Death Wound, The 293 

[385] 



INDEX 



Deserted Hotel, The 103 

Dream in Sickness, A 220 

a.. 

Ecstasies 107 

End of the Camp, The 119 

Ephemera 101 

Fifth Avenue 32 

Fireflies 99 

Flaminia, Flaminia 253 

Flower Factory, The 47 

Fool Spake, The 227 

Fra Bernardo's Vision 257 

Fugitive Moment, The 95 

Garden of Tears, The 169 

Goatherd-Poet, The 131 

Granada 141 

Green Glade, The 284 

Guillotine, The 264 

Hands 76 

High-Finance 19 

Hillside of White Heather, A 173 

I Had a Dream 283 

Illuminated Canticle, The 135 

Impressionist, The 124 

India 211 

Infinity 206 

Innocent, The 223 

Inspiration 217 



[386] 



INDEX 



Kingdoms and Principalities 108 

Kinship 235 

Launching of a Little Boat, For the 105 

Lighted Lamp, The 233 

Little Fruit-Shop, The 46 

Little House by the Sea, The 97 

Lodging-House, The 49 

Marriage of Guineth, The 303 

Memorial Tablet, A 186 

Midsummer Trees 100 

Milliner's Apprentice, The 42 

Mont Blanc 182 

Moonlight 110 

Moonrise at Malaga 154 

Moorish Fountain, A 163 

Mosque at Cordoba, The 140 

Motherhood 240 

Motor-Man, The 50 

Music-Hall, The 15 

Music at Saint Sulpice, The 155 

Nameless City, A 151 

Nay, do not Hoard Your Dream 213 

New York 25 

Niagara 59 

Nightingale, The 93 

Nymph at Aranjuez, To a 133 

On a Tower in Cadiz 149 

On the Roof of the Milan Cathedral 183 



[387] 



INDEX 



Our Lady of Idleness 38 

Outcast, The 70 

Path We Never Took, The 209 

Pedro at the Spring 158 

People 78 

Prince in Vetulonia, A 248 

Badiances 121 

Ride Home, The 192 

Roman Garden, A 189 

Roof of the Milan Cathedral, On the 183 

Salutation to Russia, A 64 

Sanctuary 259 

Sculptor, The 23 

Secrets 91 

Self 88 

Seven Green Pools at Cintra 160 

Shadow of the Helmet, The 197 

Singing Knight, The 30 

Son of his Father, The 202 

Soubrette, The 52 

Soul and the Evil Deed, The 301 

Spain 127 

Spring by the Guadalhorce 113 

Star, The 219 

Statues in the Museum, The 175 

Stranger in the House, The 152 

Subway, The 27 

Swimmer, The 215 

Temptation 269 

Thmgs that Endure, The 237 

[388] 



INDEX 



To Time the Mediator 238 

To a Nymph at Aranjuez 133 

Toledo 143 

Tower in Cadiz, On a 149 

Travesties 73 

Trembling Flower, The 226 

Twilight- Watchers 115 

Two Travelers, The 297 

Under the Williamsburg Bridge 44 

Unfinished Lives 288 

Unknown Architect, The 177 

Up a Brook 85 

Vespers 208 

Visitor, The 230 

Waterfalls 179 

When She Came to Glory 275 

White Azenor 280 

Will Goodspeed 36 

Yearning 204 

Years that the Locust Hath Eaten, The 34 

Youth . 200 



NOV 24 1913 



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